Episode 11

My mom kept asking how she was going to protect her family. The police told her to change our numbers. As soon as we changed our number, though, the guys knew I was a snitch, and the harassment amped up. My mum paid them off in instalments, a total of around 1 million naira, and they went away, at least for a while. Then they’d reappear and resume threatening us.We lived like prisoners. I couldn’t even go to the convenience store for cigarettes again. It felt like I’d exchanged one constricting reality for another. The second time I was allowed out by myself, about three months after that visit to the police station, I was walking to my new job at Akure, cutting through a park. As I exited, two parked cars suddenly turned on their lights. Two guys got out of each car: Andrew and Peter, and some others I recognized. They called me a rat and a snitch. “You used to be a good girl. What happened?” Then they started punching me. One guy tripped me and I fell to the ground. Another guy stabbed me with his keys and punctured my abdomen. I was wearing my white company’s uniform, and my knees were cut open from the gravel. I got up and went to work in a blood-soaked uniform.After that incident, my mom found a list of organizations that support people getting out of the sex trade. I dialled a group and told them my story. A woman came over right away. She took me back to the same police station, but this time I met with two officers who had been trained in cases like mine. They took me seriously. What had happened to me began to make sense. I agreed to do a video statement and hand over my phone for evidences and facts The women at the group suggested that I go to a safe house in a very remote area. It was a horrible place, dingy and in a drug-infested neighbourhood. But the guys couldn’t reach me there. Maybe it was over.
I wish I could say that was my happy ending, but it’s hard to stay out, even when you get out. By the time I was 23, I’d been out of the sex trade for a year or so.
To be continued…….

© Grace Dammy.