By Kebba AF Touray
Amie Jobe, a survivor of human trafficking, Thursday, 29 August 2024 explained the ordeals she encountered while she was trafficked.
Appearing before the ECOWAS Parliament’s Joint committee, she explains inhumane ordeals during the dialogue with young people on irregular migration, on the sidelines of the delocalized meeting of the joint committee, which recently concluded in the Gambia.
The Community Parliament’s joint committees on Trade, Customs and Free Movement, Political Affairs, Peace, Security, and African Peer Review Mechanisms, Social Affairs, Gender, Women Empowerment and Persons with Disabilities, Legal Affairs and Human Rights conducted the said delocalized meeting.
Narrating her ordeal, she told the committee that she is a school graduate who studied mass communication. The first daughter of her father, Jobe started working after her studies.
“In 2013 I lost my Father. He was the only person that took care of me until I became the person I was in 2013. Losing a father is what led me to be a survivor of human trafficking,” she narrated.
She said that this was because she had younger ones to take care of, and in 2013, youths didn’t discuss migration or issues related to human trafficking, it was not rampant, but she came to know about human trafficking when she became a victim.
“When I met this man, l looked up to him as a brother, because traffickers are always people we trust and people we know. So, this man took the advantage of me trusting him. He promised me that he would secure a job for me because I was going through a lot and I did not have anybody to support me. I was alone and I have younger ones to take care of,” she said in tearful tone.
She said when the man promised her the job, due to the trust she had for him, he said he was going to secure a communication job for her in Egypt, and that she should give him her documents to be able to secure a job for her.
She said that she cooperated and submitted the documents she asked of her, and later the man told her that everything was okay, and that the only thing remaining was a passport.
She said the man told her, “I will help you to get a passport, because I know an Immigration Officer working at the Immigration Department”.
She said she submitted the documents to him, and the man later told her that everything was okay.
She said the man helped her to secure a passport.
She narrated, “There was this agent from Sierra Leone. She was the one that took me to Senegal and in Senegal, I met the Nigerian agents that took me to Egypt, but with all these, I did not know the processes involved in human trafficking”.
She continued to say that on the final day, she was told that they were going to meet the agents from Sierra Leone, and when they met with them, they told her that she would be going to Senegal, where she will have her visa and air ticket to travel to Egypt.
“We left the Gambia around 12:00 using the last ferry to cross the river and we started our journey and the Immigration officer escorted us until we reach the Karang-Amdalai border and we proceeded with our journey,” she told the Regional Lawmakers.
She said that they arrived in Senegal at 4:00 am, and upon arrival, she was taken to a small room, which was full with three men, who were all Nigerians.
She said those were the people that were supposed to help her get the documentation to get her air ticket, visa and the travelling documents, “but that was not normal, because I am from The Gambia, and it is against our tradition to sleep in a room with men. I wasn’t feeling comfortable”.
She said that she called her Uncle, and explained to him that those people were going to help her to travel, and the uncle asked her if she knew those people, to which she replied in the negative.
She added that when her uncle asked her how she came to know those people, she replied that she was linked with them by a brother (Immigration Officer) who promised to get her a job.
She said that her uncle told her that it was not safe to share a room with those men, and the uncle helped her to get a safer place where she would reside until the processes are exhausted.
She lamented, “With that they were not even comfortable, because for them, they knew what I was there for, but for me I did not know, and they would not want me to stay away from them even for three minutes. They were always with me”.
The next day, she said she was supposed to go to the Embassy, and on reaching the Embassy, the Nigerian agent told her that she should tell the Embassy that she was going to Egypt for a business trip, to which she complied, and the interview was successful.
She said that she was then given a visa to travel to Egypt, via a flight from Senegal and she went with the agents to the airport, “but I did not know that they already sold me. I was already bought…… I didn’t know”.
At the airport, she said the agents took pictures of her, and when she asked why they were taking those pictures, the agents told her that those pictures were for remembrance.
“I did not know those pictures were being sent to agents in Egypt who were coming to pick me up at the airport. When I reached Egypt after a long flight (from Dakar to Istanbul to Egypt, I left the exit door, two men came and grabbed my hands,” she busted into tears.
She said they put her in a vehicle, and they started their journey, and she asked where they were taking her to, and the agents told her to sit down and she would know when they reach the place.
Upon arrival, she said they entered a room with three bedrooms, one loaded with different types of luggage, mattresses were spread in one of the rooms, and the third room was where the agent lives with his wife.
She said, “They asked me to drop my luggage and lock the door. They asked me to get into the second room, and they locked that door and left. After five minutes, they came back and asked for her passport. When I asked why they requested for my passport, they said they were going to do a seven day prayers for me to succeed in whatever I wish”.
That was the last time she set her eyes on her passport, until the day she came back home, she said.
She said they seized all her documents, and “I was locked in a room for two weeks and my phones were all taken from me. I couldn’t get access to my phone to communicate with my people”.
Luckily, she said, her Uncle and Mother who live in Dakar went looking for her, to find out about her situation, and when her Uncle got to the place in Dakar, he got scared and called the agents in Egypt and requested that they should get her a phone.
“When they got me a phone and a sim card, I called my mother and when I said …. ‘hello’, we all started crying but I could not tell my mum all I was going through, because I was also thinking of how traumatizing it was going to be for her,” she said in a tearful voice, noting that was the last time she spoke to her mum, until she finally returned.
She recalls that a woman called her one day and asked her to come so that she can be trained on how to work as a house cleaner.
She said: “I told the lady that I was not there for that, because I was told that I was secured a job in a company as a Communication Officer, and the woman laughed, and that was strange to me”.
She said the woman continued laughing and “I asked ‘why are you laughing’, the woman said that I did not know that I was already sold, and ‘you are here to work as a domestic worker’.”
She said the woman warned her that she would later understand what befell her and she busted into tears. Later, she said she was taken to her madam who had three kids to take care of and do all the house chores.
“I was not treated as a human being. My rights were violated and I was treated like a slave, and there was nobody that I could call,” she said as she cried.
She added: “I was told I was going to be paid US$450.Yes I was paid that amount every month, but that money was not coming to me. The US$400 would be taken away and the US$50 would be given to me”.
She said when she asked why they gave her US$50, she was told that the US$400 would be used to settle all the expenses spent on her in that house for the year.
She said she left that job and was taken to a second workplace, where things got worst, as her madam had two kids who had mental illness, and she had to take care of those kids.
She bemoaned: “I was like I cannot work with these people, because these people are not okay and I can also run mad. They said it is your work and you have to do it”.
She said that she spent 7 months in Egypt and worked at three different homes, until she finally met two Senegalese, Sarja and Mustapha.
She said when she spoke in Wollof language, those people noticed that she is not from Senegal but Gambia.
She said those people asked her what she was doing there, and she explained all her plights to them, and they felt her pains and they asked her to go with them.
These people kept her in a home that no one could see her until the day they attacked and broke into the home of the Nigerian agent and took her passport and other passports, Jobe recalls.
These people, she said, asked her what she wanted after receiving her passport, and she told them that she wanted to come back to the Gambia.
She said another girl who asked her about her whereabouts, pretending to be a helper, later called her.
She said that when he told the girl about her location, they came with the police and forcefully took her away and put her in a detention room for two weeks, adding, “I nearly wanted to commit suicide, because it was too much for me as a young person”.
She said she was finally told that she was going to come back, and it was Sarja and Mustapha who bought her air ticket and she finally came back home.
She said upon returning home, she was met with ‘sexual exploitation stereotype and mindset’ since many lbelled her as a prostitute.
She thus decided to work against all odds and started the advocacy against human trafficking.
The regional lawmakers challenged her to take legal actions against the alleged Immigration Officer involved in her trafficking, as it is sad to see such an official involved in what they descried as an inhumane act.
They also assured her of support to ensure that justice is served for the gross human rights violations meted out to her.
