Odunayo Eniola Isaac, a 28-year-old Nigerian woman who was trafficked to Iraq and endured nearly two years of torture without pay, has stated that severe hardship and lack of job opportunities have made Nigerian youths vulnerable to human traffickers.
Odunayo said this during an exclusive interview with SaharaReporters where she recounted her ordeal in the hands of her Iraqi employer who tortured her like a common criminal for almost two years.
SaharaReporters in December 2024 reported that Odunayo who hails from Osun State in the South-West region of Nigeria was trafficked to Iraq in February 2023 to work as a domestic help.
She was a victim of human trafficking perpetrated by one Alhaja Yusuf Shakira, notoriously known as Mama Uganda, who deceitfully transported her to Iraq with promises of a better life.
Odunayo arrived in Nigeria on January 3, 2025, following SaharaReporters’ story about her ordeal in the Middle-East country.
During the interview, Odunayo recounted how she endured almost two years of inhumane treatment, brutal physical torture, and degrading dehumanisation at the hands of her Iraqi employer, Saba Akram, and his spouse.
She recounted how her emotional and psychological well-being had been severely compromised, even as she tried to resettle in Nigeria with her sick mother amid severe hardship and joblessness.
Odunayo said, “My advice to my sisters that are still interested in traveling out to go and make money is just try and stay at home, and be good.
“Even though you are drinking garri, just manage it like that because I can’t even pray for my enemy to be in that place (Iraq) again.
“I’m also pleading with our government to please help us the youths. It is because there is no work. We are just managing. There is no food, yet, we have to take care of our families.
“There is no food. Some people are stealing not because they wish to be thieves. Even myself that went there (Iraq), it is not that I wished to go there but I just because I want to take care of my family.
“I just had to take any risk and face any consequences just to make sure I made it in life. The government should please help us the youths with anything at all because we are really passing through a lot.
“It is not our wish to go through all this and be in such a place (Iraq and other places victims are trafficked to) but we just have to do it because there is nothing in Nigeria — there is no work.
“It is just the top people that take everything even when they (governments) say some are for the youths, they (top government officials and leaders) will still take and we the youth don’t get anything.
“The government should also help our people who are still there and want to come back home. They are really passing through a lot there.
“Many people are still there who don’t have money to buy flight tickets and many of them there are no longer normal. Some of them have gone crazy. I even thank God that I did not run mad. Because many people have run mad and no longer understand what they are doing.
“Aside from the prisons, there are many people still in their employers’ houses that need urgent help because some of the employers’ houses are worse than the prisons. The prisons are even safer.”
She said since she returned, “I have gone to the hospital, done some tests. I’m still trying to take care of my sick mom because I have to take care of my mom too. I’m just coping
“It is because of my mom that I went to Iraq because I want her to be happy. When I was there (in Iraq), she was just running here and there and used all the money she had to go to different places. As I came back, I just have to take care of my family.”