25 victims of human trafficking have been rescued by the Delta State Police in the Ugheli area of the state.
The Delta State command’s spokesperson, SP Bright Edafe, stated this on Thursday in Asaba, the state capital.
He said, “On June 15, 2024, acting on credible information received by the command on the activities of one Chinyere (surname unknown) who specialised in trafficking women from the South-East and brought them to Ughelli, Delta State for prostitution, intelligence further revealed that she lured them by telling them that they were coming to Delta State to work as sales girls in a restaurant.
“The Commissioner of Police Delta State, CP Abaniwonda Olufemi, who has zero tolerance for human/child trafficking detailed the DPO Ekpan, CSP Aliyu Shaba, to immediately work on the gathered intelligence and ensure that the hotel was located and the suspect arrested.
“Consequently, one of the victims (name withheld) was located and she revealed the illegal activities of the said suspect Chinyere unknown currently at large.”
According to Edafe, the victim stated further that the suspect deceived her parents to follow her to Delta State from Abia State to be a sales girl in a bar with a salary of N30,000 monthly.
He, however, said that the victim with two other young girls followed the suspect down to a town, later understood to be Ughelli but on getting to their final destination, they saw other teenagers.
“They were naked and were informed that it was prostitution they were brought for which they declined and as a result, they were immediately thrown out of the hotel.
“Based on the information, a combined team of surveillance stormed the hotel, ‘Big Dafe Hotel’, by the Ughelli-Patani Road, and arrested one Chioma Edafe, 36, who runs the hotel and 35 others among which 23 are all teenagers,” Edafe added.
He said a serious manhunt for the main suspect Chinyere was ongoing.
Meanwhile, some of the 23 teenage girls have revealed that they were misled into believing they would be paid between N30,000 and N35,000 to work at a bar and restaurant, not as prostitutes, in Delta State.
It was learnt that the survivors, mostly teenage girls, were usually lured away from their parents with the promise to engage them as salesgirls in Delta State.
While expressing her ordeal, one of the survivors from Abia State, identified simply as Chinyere, told the police that she was taken to Asaba with the promise of working at a bar.
She said, “They said we were going to be working at a bar and that they would be paying us N30,000. They brought us to a hotel in Ughelli.
“They brought us to the hotel for prostitution. But when we refused, they told us to leave. They said if we want to stay in the hotel for the night, we should pay N25,000.
Another survivor who was taken to Asaba from Anambra State, known simply as Okoro, claimed that the fleeing suspect, known only as Madam Chinyere, told her she would be working at a restaurant.
She said, “It was Chinyere (the female suspect) who brought us from Anambra State. She said I should come to work at a restaurant. She said I would be paid N35,000 for the work. But she took us to a hotel. When we got there, we realised what they were doing was prostitution.
“I spent two weeks there. The first day I got there, she said I should ‘go and mount’ after which she gave me some clothes to wear. When I told her I didn’t understand what mounting was, she told me to go outside and shake my body so that men would see me.”
