By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani EDO, Nigeria (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sitting on the floor surrounded by vials, animal bones and sheets stained crimson with blood, spiritual doctor Olor Elemian described how he scares girls into blind obedience with potions and spells known as “juju”. “Something in her head will keep telling her: ‘Go and pay!’” Juju is a potent ingredient in a cocktail of coercion that keeps thousands of Nigerian women and girls in sex slavery in Europe, mostly in Italy, after making the treacherous journey across North Africa and the Mediterranean in search of better lives. Combined with crippling debt and threats of violence, it helps perpetuate a cycle of exploitation in which many victims then become perpetrators, returning to Nigeria as “madams” to recruit more girls, police and rights groups say.
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Cycle of exploitation turns Nigerian sex slaves in Italy into traffickers