More Nigerian women are embarking on journey to the Middle East to become house helps (shagala) to Arabian women popularly called ?Madam? in their search for greener pastures. But their experience leaves much to be desired, MARIA DIAMOND writes.

?I want to come back home. I want to come back home,? a 24-year old lady sobbed. Her voice was unclear. Her quavering voice was shaky this evening.

?Why? Are you not enjoying there,? her sister asked.

?Things are not the same here,? she said tearfully on phone. ?I feel like coming back home.?

?No now, Felicia. You can?t come like that,? Confidence, the younger sister of Felicia quipped.

?I know. I know, but you need to see the way we are treated here. My body is aching. Every part of me aches. The job is stressful. I?m dying gradually,? she cried out, suddenly.

?Sorry sister. It is for a time, everything will be alright,? Confidence replied her sister.

?My Madam would always ask if there is water in Nigeria, then she would also ask if there is food. She would also ask if Nigeria is big or small. She and all her friends believe that Nigeria is a small village where there is nothing and people live in mud houses and abject poverty,? Felicia, a shagala, another word for house help in Arab, said.

Felicia had been in Cairo and hoping to enter Europe in a few months. But things were not working the way she expected. She added, ?Well, do I blame my Madam? I am here in her country, at her house as a house-help and the same with all her other friends who have Nigerian women in their various houses as their house-helps. So, of course, they would think Nigeria is in complete shambles. What else can we do here? A lot of us living here are undocumented and so house help is all we can have ? shagala job is what I came here to do, anyway.?

Felicia admitted, ?I always feel terrible when these Madams reduce Nigerians to nothing based on their notion of where we came from. They believe Nigerians are not healthy and there are no basic healthcare amenities in our country, which is why most of us run away from Nigeria, as they put it, to their country. They have this wrong notion because there are a lot of Nigerians here illegally and more still come in on daily basis by all means, mostly illegal. I am also here illegally and I am only here in Cairo to work as a house help for a short period of time though my Arab Madam assumes I am going to be here for as long as 10 to 20 years because she believes that I don?t have anywhere else to go.?

If Felicia had faced brutality in her short stay in Cairo as a shagala, many had gone through worse treatments in the Middle East. Another lady in her mid-30s, Kemi, told The Guardian: ?They don?t care about what the girls? go through at work and we all know that this shagala work is not easy. The sponsors don?t care about them being maltreated by their Arab bosses. Christove was maltreated and tortured by her boss in Cairo and she died in the process.?

She recounted the tragic experience of a young shagala, known as Christiana, who was popularly called Christove. The girl died recently. ?Her sponsor caused her death as most of them are more interested in having these girls who they bring in as house helps,? she said.

?Most boga (sponsors) are mean and very bad. Shagala work is not for the weak, but our ladies won?t listen when you advise them against traveling to Arabian countries. Egypt?s economy is now very bad too but these sponsors won?t tell people the truth because they want to make money off them ? when the ladies now get to Cairo, that?s when they start to regret.?

A young lady who left Nigeria not long ago reportedly died in Iraq after being maltreated. She was badly beaten by the Iraqi boss for not doing her job properly. The boss eventually returned her to the Nigerian agent office. Unfortunately for the girl, the people in the Nigerian agent office also beat her. They pushed her till she hit her head against a hard surface and died on the spot. That was an unaccounted soul lost. There are many of them in the Arab world.

A young Nigerian man in his 20s, who chose to remain anonymous, told The Guardian that his journey to Libya was not encouraging. ?It was a brutal experience the journey to Libya from Nigeria. We took off from Sokoto State, from there the connection man handed me and others to someone who took us to Niger Republic and from there to Agadez, where we stayed in the desert for two weeks. Our vehicle got spoiled on the road and we were stranded. They eventually got a new vehicle and we continued the journey for another four days before we got to Libya.

?The day we got to Libya, we were all taken to tranke (sort of an illegal prison) where they put all of us in one place and tortured us all day long. They beat us like animals, they stabbed us with knives. While we were there, we were not eating and when they managed to give us food, it was one slice of bread per day. Then they were using us to work ? we were asked to take care of money and that was another torture because when the money is not complete, we would be held responsible and compelled to complete the money by all means possible. I was in that place for six months because I couldn?t meet up with the demand of replacing missing money. Eventually, I reached out to my sisters in Nigeria who helped me pay off the debt and they sent me out to the street.?

He further lamented, ?I went to Tripoli, capital of Libya. Life was rough and rugged in Tripoli because people were always fighting there. It was the survival of the fittest ? we were always dodging police too because if they arrest you, you will spend about four/five hundred thousand Libyan Dinar to bail yourself which is another tranke. They will arrest you and also ask you to bail yourself with that huge sum of money. I spent a year and six months in Libya and life was horrible. Of course, it crossed my mind to return to Nigeria, but with all the money that I have spent already? I borrowed so much money in Nigeria, and so it was not possible to go back empty handed. Eventually I left Libya when I got the opportunity because that country is not a safe place to be. If you?re looking for greener pastures as an African through immigration, Arab countries should not be on your list of destinations.?

For Eunice Oshodi, a friend told her of a possibility of earning more money in the Middle East as a shagala.

?If you don?t like these Arabians, you can go to Italy. It is just a few hours on the Mediterranean Sea and you?re in Europe,? the canvasser had told her.

Oshodi was skeptical, but eventually decided to go, leave Nigeria in search of greener pastures. She left with a smuggler. The journey through the desert was harsh; they were suffering from the heat and were hungry and thirsty. When she arrived Libya, Oshodi realised the smuggler had cheated her. She was taken away to a brothel where she was forced into prostitution. After some months, she was bailed out and she left the street to work as a shagala in Cairo.

Her job is not only difficult, but the stipend she gets as her monthly earnings is too small to feed her, let alone sending anything to Nigeria for her children?s upkeep. While she lives in hardship, her trafficker receives the bulk of her salary. The same thing is happening to the other victims. ?Life has not been easy in Cairo,? she revealed.

All the victims who spoke with The Guardian said the stipend they receive from their monthly pay is not commensurate with the services they render and too small in view of the high cost of living. Yet, they cannot complain because they have no legal rights under Egypt?s laws. On some occasions, Egyptians take advantage of their domestic servants because they know they are illegal immigrants. When the victims protest, they are wrongly accused of theft and threatened with arrest and deportation

While urging them to beware of bosses who don?t permit them to use mobile phones, Oshodi retorted: ?A madam?s husband poured acid on a Nigerian lady because she was using her phone to video at work. In fact, the man said he intended to pour the acid on her face that she was lucky it only touched her body.?

She appealed to Nigerians who are desperate to travel to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Libya to think it through before embarking on the journey ?as most of these Arab bosses are vicious and even fellow Nigerians especially sponsors don?t make it easy either.?

Oshodi advised Nigerian ladies to be careful of sponsors who come with promise of El Dorado as ??their sole intention is to sell them off for sex work to make money or to be shagala.? She also admonished them to be careful of the people they work for as some just despise Nigerians and would go to any length to create problems for them.

?Some would accuse Nigerians working for them of theft and insist they pay for an item they didn?t steal.

As if doing hard and menial jobs that keep you on your toes 24 hours and seven days, 24/7 isn?t exhausting enough, we are saddled with constant fear of being sold into sex work by mean bogas otherwise known as sponsors.

?Sometimes, you?re sold by friends and acquaintances, especially Nigerian men in Libya who pretend to be friendly only to set you up and sell you off for money. The worst thing that can happen to any Nigerian female in Libya is to trust friends or get into intimate relationships with Nigerian men. Although not all the men are into this cruelty, a number of them see vulnerable Nigerian women in Libya as a means to an end.?

Recently, the Edo State Union in Libya arrested a Nigerian man who attempted selling another Nigerian that reportedly ran away from the Arab family she was working for because her madam tortured and maltreated her.

The young man, in a video that went viral, said he attempted selling the girl because she owed his elder sister 2000 Libyan Dinar. When asked why he didn?t take the girl to the Yoruba Union or the Nigeria community in Libya to complain rather than sell her off to sex work, the young man said he wasn?t aware of the existence of the community and he just wanted to recover the money.

?Since she left the house-help job my sister got for her, I have to find a way to recover the money for my sister,? the man said.

Narrating how a certain young girl called Elizabeth was sold recently in Libya, another Nigerian in Libya, Beauty Precious, said: ?When they tell most of our Nigerian girls that Libya is not safe for girls, they don?t listen. Although it is usually their excess love for money that makes them fall victim. Nigerian men in Libya are not into spending money on any lady, rather they collect money from them. So when they discover that a Nigerian lady doesn?t have money to offer them, they make plans to sell her. The missing Elizabeth went out suddenly and didn?t return, only for the people who kidnapped her to call her family in Nigeria to send N1m to them in Libya before they can release her, otherwise, they will sell her into sex slavery.?

Nofisat Azeez also told the story of a young lady, Yetunde, who is one of the ring leaders of the cartel that sells young girls into prostitution in Libya.

?Yetunde who was recently apprehended in Libya wasn?t working alone; she was with another guy popularly called Osa in Misurata. Osa is very notorious in Libya and dreaded by Nigerians in Libya. Yetunde sells the girls, especially new girls to Osa who then also sells the girls to others. These people who sell girls in Libya go on different social media platforms to announce job vacancy, only to sell them for sex work.? Esther Anjorin, a victim, revealed that Osa is the boga that took her and her sister to Libya. ?He sold us to one woman in Misurata.?

?Aside from charges these bogas collect from the women, the young girls who because they are living in Libya illegally can?t save money in the bank end up giving their extra money to the sponsors to help them keep. Unfortunately, after a while, these sponsors send them out of their house to the street without giving them their money. A lot of Nigerians who are sponsors here in Libya are very wicked; they treat the young girls who come into this country very badly,? Anjorin said.

Mariam Adewunmi Ibrahim asked: ?You want to come to Libya, can you do the job? I will not discourage people from coming to Libya, but are you physically fit to do the job? You will stand for 20 hours working and when your bosses call, you will have to run without excuse or complaint. Otherwise you?re in for an unpleasant show.

?Libya is not a playground; it?s a different kind of life where we do strenuous jobs that affect our health. Destination Libya will teach you wisdom if you didn?t have it before coming into the country. This country?s hustle and bustle will humble you.?

Sefiat hinted: ?You must be very hard working, this is not a playground. Libya is not a country where you go to clubs, merry and just while away time just because it is a different kind of life here. You will work with your blood and water and your entire body system would beg you to stop but you can?t because you?re already here and you must survive through thick and thin. You can?t return home empty handed. Your family in Nigeria constantly puts you under financial pressure without knowing what you go through to make each dime and you feel compelled to deliver and meet up to these responsibilities, after all, you?re tagged as a sister and daughter who is abroad. So whether it is a house help job or something even worse and degrading, nobody really cares, all they care about is that you meet up to the responsibilities even if you have to die doing it.?

Also speaking on the hardship, Nofisat said: ?We are doing very strenuous jobs that affect our health in this country. It is so unfortunate that even young women around 20 years of age are already having chest pain due to the hard jobs they do. Our health is deteriorating. This is why we need to return home to Nigeria. Some of us survive on daily medications. There are a lot of young women with chronic back pain and instead of returning home, they won?t because they keep hoping to have a lot of money which never happens in the real sense. ?Unfortunately a lot of our people in Nigeria also advise against our returning to Nigeria. They keep telling us to stay back and that Nigeria is bad. This is why people stay back here by all means possible and sometimes people break down here for as long as six months or more in a sick bed wasting all the money they have saved on treatment after which they return to square one.?

?We can?t return to Nigeria because we don?t know what we?re returning home to either.?? Despites the tales of hardship in Libya, you would wonder why Nigerians won?t just return home, after all if you can?t move forward, you should be able to return to where you?re coming from.? This is what Aisha Josiah has to say about it: ?We can?t return to Nigeria, still everyone is tired of Libya. They said we should come and try and we have all seen the downside of this country. The most painful thing is that you can?t move forward and you can?t return to where you?re coming from. Everyone I know keeps saying they are going back home to Nigeria but it?s difficult to return because we don?t even know what we are returning home to either.?

With all the tales of woes being told about the sufferings that (illegal) migrants from Africa face in Libya, Iraq and Egypt and how migrating to these Arab countries in search of greener pastures doesn?t exactly provide a bed, let alone, one filled with roses, it is expected that Nigerians will completely strike out these countries from their search for better-life. But reverse is the case as the adrenaline to travel to these parts of the world by Nigerians, especially women, increases on daily basis.

According to statistics from RFI, Nigerians make up the largest number of irregular migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa who want to enter Europe. Thousands of them end up being stranded in Libya after failing to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa into Europe.

Human traffickers often sell the stranded Nigerians and other Sub-Saharan Africans into slavery where they are held in dire conditions. Against a background of growing concern over their plight, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), between 2017 and 2022, assisted close to 19452 Nigerians to voluntarily return home.

According to sources close to The Guardian, many of these women are aware of the challenges, hardship and life-threatening risks involved in migrating to these Arab countries, ?yet they still prefer to risk their lives and walk into fire with opened eyes ? a kind of self-slavery where they sell themselves into abject hardship with the hope that there would be light at the end of the tunnel.?

Really, there is need for more awareness campaign, as many of the agents continue to deceive innocent Nigerians with fake sponsorship promises. Abia State Governor Alex Otti believes that the phenomenon of Nigerians relocating abroad to do all sorts of jobs can only be controlled with good governance and job creation. According to Otti, the situation cannot be stopped with legislation or even appeal to patriotism. The solution lies with the nation?s political leaders who should put on their thinking caps and come up with good policies and programmes that would create similar opportunities pulling Nigerians to foreign lands.

?You cannot legislate it, you cannot do anything about it once your economy and your system don?t look conducive or don?t look attractive, or if other economies are looking better than yours. So, the only response you have is to create the enabling environment, create jobs for them and encourage them to stay back,? Otti said.

??Wherever the right policies are in place to attract young talented people, they will go there, no matter what you do. Hence, there is need to make Nigeria attractive to its citizens.??

Economic opportunities are the primary motivators for those looking to leave the country. NOI Polls 2023 report found that 50 per cent of Nigerians believe that those living abroad enjoy better living conditions, while 54 per cent think they have greater opportunities compared to Nigerians at home.

The Senate Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations recently lamented the mass migration, otherwise known as ?Japa? by Nigerians, to foreign countries in search of greener pastures, saying the development must be checked.

The committee chaired by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi), made the declaration at its maiden meeting held at the Senate wing of the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.

Akpoti-Uduaghan who represents Kogi Central on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said reversal of the mass migration must be given adequate attention in the interest of the nation.

?This committee will do this by collaborating with relevant stakeholders in the area of making Nigerians, particularly the youth, believe more in their country and not have the mindset of wanting to rush out of the country. Patriotism is earned and not forced.

?We need to identify a few steps that we can take in building our economy here, using our diaspora energy. We?re going to look into countries like India, Pakistan, and even Egypt, in Africa here on how they have grown their capacities and made their countries attractive for a larger percentage of the citizenry to stay.

?The committee will start this process by getting the database of Nigerians in Diaspora, country by country, and also collaborate with various international organisations on areas of focus that can attract many of them back home.

?India is a very good example of countries we can put in focus in reversing the Japa syndrome by being the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capacity hub of the world with attendant jobs for its citizens,? she said. (The Guardian)

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