A young Nigerian lady who gave her name simply as Adetomisin has relived how she was always harassed sexually and treated as a slave by her masters in Oman.
Adetomisin, a native of Ondo State, South West, Nigeria, in a video that went viral online, said her agreement with the agent was that he would take her to the United States of America to get a good job but the trafficker ended up selling her off to Oman, where she is presently stuck and regretting.
The embattled lady recounted her ordeal in Yoruba Language for reasons best known to her but we have transcribed it for the benefit of people who do not understand the language.
Her words: “Good evening children of Nigeria. My name is Adetomisin. I am a Nigerian from Ondo State. I am speaking to you from Oman right now. When I was leaving Nigeria, it was USA that my agent and I agreed that I will travel to, to go and work. When I completed my NCE programme, didn’t get a job and saw the situation of things that I decided to travel. My agent promised to help me to secure a job in the USA. All of a sudden, everything changed and I was taken to Oman together with one other lady. When we got to the airport at Oman, two people came to pick us. They took us to one office where they took our passports and our phones.
“After that they drove us to where we would be working. When we got there, my boss started frustrating my life. For the first four months that worked for him, he didn’t pay me any salary nor any allowance. When I called my agent, he said he had played his part and that there was nothing more he could do.
“Since then, my agent has refused to answer my calls. Then, my boss started threatening to have sexual relationship with me but I refused. I work from 4am till 12 or 1 am every day. He started threatening to kill me if I would not do what he wanted me to do. I told him I wasn’t going to work again and that I should be returned to my country. They later took me back to the office where I was taken to on arrival. When we got there, they started shouting at us and thereafter locked us up in a room for a whole week without food or water.”
During the horrific one week detention, Adetomisin said: “Most of us drank water from the toilet for that whole week before they took us out again to go and work. I have spent one year and two months in the new place and I have told my boss that I am sick and that I should be allowed to return to my country but he said no, that he would not allow me to go.
“Nigerians please help me, I want to return home …(sobbing). I am sick o, and my boss said I cannot come back home. My number is 96892544763.”
We’ve found Adetomisin- Omotola Fawunmi RAIS co-founder
Co-founder of Returning Africans in Slavery (Project Ferry) Omotola Fawunmi, says Adetomisin has been found in a tiny city, which is six hours away from Oman’s capital, Muscat.
She said: “We saw her video online weeks ago and decided to investigate as with many others that we put up for help on our end.
“From the video we learnt she was in Oman and her story was compelling, clearly a case of fraudulent recruitment.
“We reached out to our network of associates who found us an on-ground Omani contact. The contact called the number she mentioned in her video and gathered that she was desperately desiring to escape.
“She is not home yet because she is 6 hours outside Muscat where our Oman contact lives. We are hoping once the lockdown ends, we would be able to get her back home.”
She added: “This is the fate of a lot of young girls in Nigeria. There is usually a Nigerian agent and a destination country agent. Both pose as recruiting or travel agencies.
“The Nigeria agent sources the girls with a promise of jobs in a foreign country, you hear things like ‘he told me I would work in an office’.
“The office is in fact the destination countries agents’ office who is just a receiver and logistics coordinator to receive the girls for onward sales to a predetermined buyer who has paid $5000-$10000 for a girl to serve as his domestic slave.
“The girl is unaware she is being sold. She arrives the destination country supposedly to work but is then handed over to a master she is not aware of. Often this master pays $150-200/month and a percentage of this is demanded by the Nigerian agents.”
RAIS has been involved in the rescue of these girls since 2019 and in partnership with government institutions like the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and the Diaspora Commission, have helped 51 girls return to Nigeria from Oman, Lebanon and Cote d’Ivoire.
According to her, they have helped 25 girls escape slave masters in Lebanon. “They are currently in our care till borders open again,” she said, “once borders open we can negotiate their safe return.”
“We have over 100 still with Slave Masters in Lebanon, over 150 in Oman and 300 in Cotedivoire and our team remain committed despite the daunting task. We all work remotely in different parts of the world because one of our teammates was killed in January while tracking a Nigerian agent” she disclosed.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), via its twitter handle says it is working towards the safe return of Adetomisin. The tweet reads: RE ADETULA OLUWATOSIN ITUNUOLUWA TRAFFICKED TO OMAN
@DGNaptip appreciates the concerns of partners and stakeholders on the plight of the above said lady trafficked to Oman.
“The Agency in its’ usual manner is working assiduously through intelligence gathering and partnership with stakeholders in the destination country with a view to ensuring her safe return to Nigeria.
“At the moment, she is out of the reach of her traffickers and currently taking shelter in a safe location. In the same vein, the Agency is frantically making efforts to bring her back home and also prosecute her traffickers.”
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Biden reverses Trump’s travel ban on Nigeria, Yemen, Eritrea, others
Mr Biden has now nullified the entry ban on citizens from over a dozen countries, including Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, and Sudan.
Newly sworn-in American president, Joe Biden, on Wednesday, issued an executive order nullifying a travel ban imposed on citizens of some Muslim-majority countries by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Before his exit from White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump-led administration was notorious for its harsh policies against immigrants and asylum seekers, one of his many election campaign promises.
He tightened the policies amidst the coronavirus pandemic which rocked the globe, claiming his decision was to protect American populace.
However, Mr Biden, immediately after his inauguration on Wednesday, issued a number of executive orders undoing some of the policies and projects of his predecessor.
Reversals
Mr Biden has now nullified the entry ban on citizens from over a dozen countries, including Nigeria, Eritrea, Yemen, and Sudan.
“There’s no time to waste.
“These are just all starting points,” he said before signing the 17 executive orders in the White House, a statement that connotes the possibility of many more to come.
Mr Trump’s strict immigration policies have been condemned by leaders and civil groups in the past.
The American Civil Liberties Union, on Wednesday lauded Mr Biden’s decision berating his predecessor’s travel policy a “cruel Muslim ban that targeted Africans.
Culled from Premium Times
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Frightened residents brace as Cyclone Eloise approaches Mozambique
IOM is assisting the Government of Mozambique’s preparations for the arrival of Cyclone Eloise, moving people to safety in accommodation centers in Buzi. Photo: IOM 2021
Roughly 160 International Organization for Migration (IOM) staff in central Mozambique are working to prepare local communities for the imminent arrival of Cyclone Eloise, which is currently packing winds of at least 150 km/h.
“The people are scared,” said Cesaltino Vilanculo, an IOM Mobile team leader in the provincial capital Beira, who helped hundreds of families evacuate from unsafe temporary settlements to two accommodation centers.
“The water is rising in their zones and people are frightened, bracing for yet another storm.”
Eloise is expected to make landfall in Beira late Friday or early Saturday. By mid-afternoon today shops across the city are closed and flooded streets, empty.
IOM personnel will be ready to respond immediately with specialists in camp coordination and management, shelter, the distribution of non-food items, health and protection services and data mapping under IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).
The Port of Beira is set to close on Friday for a period of about 40 hours in expectation of dangerous winds and rain from the afternoon of 22 January through the morning of 24 January. Beira is the main entry point for goods bound for north coastal Mozambique.
A limited supply of emergency non-food items had been stockpiled in Beira, including tarps and water tanks. However, resources are stretched, as IOM is actively responding to the crisis across Northern Mozambique.
At the same time, over 900 people are already displaced in Beira City due to recent heavy rains and the impact of Tropical Storm Chalane, which hit nearby Sofala Province on 30 December.
“The government is working, identifying the safe places to bring the people who are most vulnerable,” explained Aida Temba, a protection project assistant with IOM Mozambique.
“The rain is coming, and the water is rising and it’s not easy to reach all the people who need assistance. But we do our best to respond.”
Hundreds of families were evacuated to two accommodation centres, sheltered in tents provided by Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction (INGD). One accommodation center was today closed, in favor of moving families to schools, which provide more stable structure. Those families’ needs include food, potable water, hygiene kits and soap.
IOM Mozambique also has reported that due to heavy rainfall and the discharge of water from the Chicamba dam and the Mavuzi reservoir—both in the Buzi District west of Beira—over 19,000 people have been affected and hundreds are being moved to accommodation centers. Their needs include food, hygiene kits, and COVID-19 prevention materials.
IOM staff are supporting the Government of Mozambique with the movements in both Beira and Buzi and actively working to improve drainage ways in resettlement sites in preparation for further rains.
IOM’s DTM, working jointly with Mozambique’s INGD, is poised to produce a report on displacement and damages within the first 72 hours of the cyclone’s arrival.
Tropical storms historically are common in these early months of rainy season. Cyclone Idai struck the country in March 2019. It is considered one of the worst tropical cyclones to hit Africa on record, claiming hundreds of lives, and affecting three million people across wide swaths of Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi and Zimbabwe. A second powerful storm, Cyclone Kenneth, hit Mozambique just weeks later.
Total property damages from Cyclone Idai have been estimated at some USD2.2 billion. Almost two years later, roughly 100,000 people remain in resettlement sites, which also have been battered by the recent rains.
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IOM commends United States’ inclusion of migrants in COVID-19 vaccine roll-out
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomes the inclusion of migrants in the new US Administration’s national strategy for COVID-19 response and its commitment “to ensuring that safe, effective, cost-free vaccines are available to the entire U.S. public—regardless of their immigration status”.
In light of this announcement, IOM calls on all countries to adopt similar migrant-inclusive approaches, to ensure that as many lives as possible can be saved.
“COVID-19 vaccines provide the opportunity we have been waiting for, but only if we use them wisely and strategically, by protecting the most at-risk first, no matter their nationality and legal immigration status,” warned IOM Director General António Vitorino. “I applaud those Governments choosing the path of inclusion and solidarity for their vaccine roll-outs.”.
According to the COVAX Facility – the multilateral mechanism created to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines – immunization campaigns have already started in over 50 countries.
Many countries have yet to release their prioritization strategies for the vaccine roll-outs, but the United States, Germany and Jordan, among others, have already announced various measures to provide access to the vaccine equitably, including to asylum seekers, migrants in irregular situations and forcibly displaced persons. Last year, similar migrant-inclusive approaches were adopted for COVID-19 testing, treatment and social services in Ireland, Malaysia, Portugal, Qatar and the United Kingdom.
To facilitate truly effective and equitable immunization campaigns, IOM is working closely with the COVAX Facility, Member States, the World Health Organization, and other partners, and recommending that national authorities adopt practices to account for all migrant, such as:
Ensuring an adequate number of vaccine doses is planned for and procured to include migrants in-country, and that delivery systems are fit-for-purpose;
Reducing the number of administrative hurdles for migrants to access health care and vaccines, including high costs and proof of residence or identity.
Actively reaching out to migrant communities through linguistically and culturally competent communication methods to build trust, inform and engage in programming;
Offering guarantees that vaccination will not lead to detention or deportation;
Strengthening health systems and setting up mobile vaccination mechanisms where needed to ensure last-mile distribution.
“Migrants play an enormous part in our socioeconomic development and collective well-being. Despite this, many migrants have remained disproportionately exposed to excessive health risks through their living and working conditions and have continued to face tremendous challenges in accessing COVID-19 and other essential health services,” said Director General Vitorino.
“If we are not careful and deliberate about including migrants in vaccination plans, we will all pay a higher price.”
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