A 25-year-old returnee from Russia, Miss Blessing Atale, has cautioned Nigerian girls on the dangers of travelling abroad to engage in commercial sex activities. She was raped several times by her clients who resort to violence to avoid payment for sexual services rendered.
Narrating her ordeal to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Benin, Atale, a commercial sex worker who stayed in Russia for six years, said things were not as rosy over there as they were made to believe.
She said she left the shores of Nigeria at the age of 19, for Moscow, where she stayed and earned a living as a commercial sex worker, until her return to Nigeria on April 21, 2018.
She said as a commercial sex worker in Moscow, she slept with no fewer than 30 men daily, to enable her offset the 64,000 US dollars (about N23m) payment to the ‘madam’ who sponsored her trip.
“It is not a life I had wished for, or one that I will wish anyone; I opted for this journey owing to the hardship in my family.
“My pensioner father was bedridden following an accident in 2011, while my mother was doing nothing.
“I am the fourth child in the family of five and was in Senior Secondary School (SSS) 2 when I left Nigeria.
“It was not as if I was not told of what I will be doing while there, but I opted for it with the consent of my parents, who though, were scared about it.
“Upon arrival in Russia in 2012, I worked hard and finished paying ‘madam’ $60,000 and additional $2,000 each to her agent and the native doctor who administered the oath before I left Nigeria.
“However, things took a downward trend after I had finished the payment in 2015; I could hardly make money to even pay for my rent and to take care of myself.
“It was so bad that I started relying on money from people; the most painful aspect of it is that I lost my dad in the midst of all this.
“Prostitution is no longer profitable there and we constantly live in danger of being killed all the time, by our clients.
“I was kidnapped on three occasions while working as a prostitute in Russia, and raped for several days by my abductors, before releasing me.
“This is just what they do when they do not want to pay for the service you rendered.
“There are times when your client will either force you to sleep with him without condom, or beat the hell out of you, to sleep with you through anal,” she narrated.
When asked how they found their way to the country without legal documents, she said that they usually took risks and when they were arrested by the Russian Police, they always found a way to secure their freedom.
“When they arrest us, the police usually asked for money or in the alternative, demand to sleep with you to secure your freedom,” she explained.
She said her return home was made possible by a Nigerian-based Non-Governmental Organization that had helped a lot of Nigerians find their way back to the country in the past.
According to her, there are over 1,000 Nigerian girls stranded in different cities of Russian, engaging in the dangerous trade, but who are begging to be returned home because of the inhuman treatment being meted out on them.
She attributed the challenge of fund for air ticket as the only hindrance to their return to the country.
Atale, who described the period of her sojourn as ‘wasted years’, said she was ready to enroll to become a trained Make-up artist, from which she hoped to earn a living and a decent life, and to assist her family.
