In December 2019, while the madam was away, Blessing finally got the courage to escape.
As part of a months-long investigation into sex trafficking and the gold mining industry, The Associated Press met with nearly 20 Nigerian women who said they had been brought to Burkina Faso under false pretenses, then forced into prostitution.
People with knowledge of the trafficking say most of the women come from Nigeria’s Edo state, where promises of jobs in shops or salons in Burkina Faso sounded like a good way to support their families.
“I feel somehow bad because it’s not a good job for them to do.
Burkina Faso is likely to be downgraded in this year’s Trafficking in Persons Report, an annual report issued by the U.S.
Burkina Faso’s gold mining industry is relatively new.
Today, Burkina Faso is the fastest-growing gold producer in Africa, and currently the fifth largest on the continent after South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Mali.
In the filings, companies say they perform due diligence to make sure that the gold used in their products is not being mined or processed by forced labor or exploited workers.
“These kinds of exploitation take place outside of the mining areas, so stakeholders don’t see it as their responsibility.
Much of it, particularly from the east, is smuggled across Burkina Faso’s borders with Togo, Benin, Niger, and Ghana, according to the Institute for Security Studies, based in South Africa.
Salofou Trahore, general director for Burkina Faso’s regulatory body for small-scale mines, said he was unaware that women were being exploited at the sites.
International Organization for Migration helped over 35 people trafficked last year in Burkina Faso, compared with 12 for all of 2018, said Claire Laroche, the organization’s protection officer.
In Secaco, a makeshift mining town tucked behind uneven dirt roads deep in the brush, trafficked women live and work in tiny, ragged tents with plastic sheeting.
A 27-year-old called Mimi said recruiters told her she’d have a job to support her three children when she arrived in Burkina Faso.
“In Nigeria, there are a lot of graduates but no jobs,” Love said.
Joy, a divorced mother of four, said she arrived early in 2020 because she couldn’t make enough money in Nigeria to support her children.
The madams confiscate the women’s passports, phones, and money, then force them into sex work in brothels in makeshift mining towns adjacent to the small-scale mines or in larger towns near the mines.
“When the representatives in Bobo-Dioulasso come, what they want is that we release the person,” he said.
Women are bound to the madams until they pay off their debts — which often approach $2,700.
Some of the women were recruited by the madams themselves, approached randomly on a bus or in the market in Nigeria, and asked if they wanted to earn a better living.
Once recruited, the women travel for approximately three days with the traffickers.
Underage girls are given fake identification cards made in Benin, according to the women, one who showed an AP reporter the forgery.
In some cases, a family sells a girl.
In January, a new European Union law came into effect aimed at stemming the import of conflict minerals and metals.
Burkina Faso is one of several countries mentioned in the legislation as being high-risk, and therefore requiring extra oversight.