Is this the end of the road for Nigerian women famed for exploiting young ladies, luring them into sex slavery and running prostitution rings outside the country? Only time will tell. Not too long ago, one Esther Nicole Otubo and a young Nigerian lady simply identified as Precious made the headlines for the wrong reasons – The former being the ‘dealer’ and the latter the ‘item’. Esther Nicole Otubo, one of the ‘Dubai Madams’. This case of a young lady started in August, 2014; when the starry-eyed Precious was lured into the illicit trade and, as part of measures to get her to pay up her daily dues, made to ‘swear an oath’ in front of camera. Actually, she was naked as she stood in front of the camera.

This act would serve as an ‘alibi’ of sorts were Precious to renege on her agreement with her Madam, Esther; the principal of the ill- famed ‘PROSTITUTION BUSINESS EMPIRE’. Principals who own and run these prostitution outlets are said to rake in as much as $30,000 (N6 million) net profit monthly. The girls are camped in various sex outlets and average hotels across the United Arab Emirates, their jobs being to trade their bodies till they can raise enough money to settle their bosses. It’s strange how much young Nigerians are willing to travel out of the country, guided by the misconception that over there the streets are paved with gold. It isn’t always what it seems to be. The grass is not always greener on the other side. Recent developments on the Precious case reveal that she completed her degree education as well as National Youth Service program in Nigeria before travelling to seek ‘greener’ pastures in far away Dubai. Therefore it brings us to these questions: Are young Nigerians forced into these acts abroad? Are they deceived into the acts prior to travelling? Are they entirely hopeless about the future back home in Nigeria? On the other hand, could it be greed that fuels the need to travel in these cases? Whatever the answer, sex slavery and human trafficking is not the answer. It is not the way. It will never be the way. Above all; whether or not Esther Nicole Otubo of the Prostitution Business Empire, nor her fellow ‘Dubai Madams’ are rounded up, and punished as they deserve, this incident will forever be a blot for years. It will always be out there for the world to see. Reacting to Precious’ humiliation; lawyer, Emeka Ugwuonye, recently spoke to Punch.

He lamented the situation, and condemned the fact that young Nigerian girls were in these traps primarily because they have no one to speak for them than it is about them voluntarily entering into these illicit dealings. Ugwuonye who runs the group Due Process Advocates spoke further: ‘I have videos of two different girls recorded under the most debasing conditions, naked and scared. What Nicole does is to videotape these girls in the nude and blackmail them into prostitution in Dubai. This woman is like none that you have come across before. She is a ‘Madam’ and a human trafficker. She takes desperate young Nigerian girls on a sex slave mission to Dubai or other Middle Eastern countries for prostitution. Before they leave Nigeria, she would first make the girls and their parents swear an oath at a local shrine in the belief that such would place a curse of sudden death on those girls were they to disobey her. The total amount she plans to get from each girl is about $30,000.’ ‘The girl is to become a prostitute, make money from her ‘clients’ and keep giving such money to the woman until she agrees she has received $30,000 from the girl. This Madam uses blackmail as an additional means of enforcing her plan. She would take a video recording of each girl, who would have been made to stand stark naked. She would tell each girl that if she failed to pay her $30,000 when she gets to Dubai or elsewhere, she would release the video tape on Facebook and would delete it when she eventually gets paid. ‘These girls apparently agree to this. I use the word “apparently” on purpose to raise questions about the voluntariness of these girls’ participation in this. Ostensibly, some of these girls have not paid the Madam all the money she demanded of them. That must have been what led Madam to release that video on Facebook. I have seen videos of three girls in such humiliation. People forwarded them to me in order for me to use DPA to help track down the woman that is behind all this. ‘There are many, many Nigerian girls suffering under her control. These girls lack the ability to cry out. They are in slavery and bondage. We must set them free and we must have the ‘Madam’ arrested.’ There is also another ‘Dubai Madam’; we simply identified her as Ann in the course of our findings. ‘She has five girls under her control. Madam Ann lodges her girls in a three-star hotel while she would stay at home and offer them men in exchange for cash. After each girl must have slept with four or five men, Madam Ann would come and collect the money they would have made from them. ‘The hotels cannot be busted by the Dubai Police. These Madams change hotels like every two days to remain undetected. Any girl that stays in the hotel for more than four days would be expected to leave because of the slow sex seekers’ traffic. The hotel’s members of staff may not know what is going on. So if there are steady traffic of clients in the hotel and to a particular room, after two days, the hotel would notice and ask the girls to leave. The only things they take to the hotels are sexy lingerie to entice customers,’ Ugwuonye said.
Naij.com Hom

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