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The nightmare refuses to end. Just when the people of Benue State thought the worst revelations in the Madam Joy Aondokaa trafficking saga had already surfaced, another survivor has spoken out from inside a Libyan connection house, bringing the confirmed number of trafficked girls to ten, with fresh evidence that three additional victims were dispatched by Joy and her mother in the last few months alone.
Until yesterday, seven girls from various communities in Benue were publicly known to have fallen into the deadly Libya–Italy route orchestrated by the Aondokaa family network. Today an eighth young woman, her voice shaking against a background of shouts and crying, managed to get word out through a borrowed phone. She confirmed she is being held with others in the same network of “connection houses” in Libya that previous survivors have described as places of beatings, starvation, forced prostitution, and organ-harvesting threats.
The new testimony directly implicates Madam Joy Aondokaa and her mother as the recruiters who lured the latest three victims with promises of decent jobs in Europe, collected hefty “travel fees” from desperate families, and handed the girls over to the northbound chain that ends in Libyan hell.
“I was told I was going to Italy to work in a salon,” one of the earlier rescued victims had said months ago. The script never changes. Fake documents, oaths of secrecy sworn at local shrines, and the terrifying journey through Niger and the Sahara, only to be sold upon arrival.
The survivor who spoke today begged for the message to reach Nigerian authorities, the Benue State government, and anti-trafficking organisations: there are still many more girls inside those compounds, some already auctioned, others waiting for the next boat that may never return.
For years, communities in Logo, Katsina-Ala, Ukum, and Gwer West have watched their daughters disappear after encounters with smooth-talking “agents” who are often respected women in the same villages. The arrest of Madam Joy earlier this year was meant to be the breakthrough, but today’s cry for help is proof the network simply shifted and continued operating.
Ten confirmed lives destroyed and counting. Ten families who paid everything they had for a future that turned into bondage.
The question burning across Benue tonight is simple and furious: how many more voices will have to break through from Libyan dungeons before the entire chain, from the village recruiters to the desert brokers and the sea captains, is finally dismantled?
Someone, somewhere, still knows the routes, the safe houses, and the bank accounts. Someone is still collecting money from parents who believe Europe is just one payment away.
To every parent reading this: if an “aunty” or “madam” you know suddenly has plenty of cash and stories of girls “doing fine abroad” with no photos, no direct phone calls, no school certificates, ask questions. Ask hard.
And to the authorities: the girl who spoke today gave names, locations, and phone numbers used by the traffickers inside Libya. She risked everything to send that information.
Her voice made it out. Now make sure she does too.
Share this story. Tag every agency that can help. The girls still trapped are counting on someone, somewhere, to hear them tonight.
