How Super Eagles Female Fans Supporters Were Caged Into Prostitution After Russia 2018

Super Eagle Fans

''I cried really hard, but what choice did I have?'' were the words from a 19 year old Blessing Obuson, a Nigerian 'Super Eagles fan', forced into prostitution in Russia.

Another 21 year old girl said this: ''They don't give you food for days, they slap you, they beat you up, they spit in your face, it's just like a cage.''

In roughly three months, it will make it one full year thousands of fans flew across countries to cheer the Super Eagles as they participated in the World Cup which took place in June 2018 in Russia.

However, contrary to expectations, not only are thousands of supposed Super Eagles fans missing, it turned out some members of the Nigerian fan base were sold into prostitution. One of such victims is 19 year old Obuson, who went to Russia in the hope of finding a job.

According to a report by Reuters, Obuson had nursed dreams of working as a shop assistant to help with her two-year-old daughter and younger siblings resident in Edo State, but she ended up locked up in an apartment in the outskirts of Moscow and forced into becoming a sex slave alongside 11 other Nigerian females.

They were under the strict supervision of a madam, also a Nigerian, who confiscated the passport of the victims and forced them to work to pay off certain debts. In Obuson's case, she had to work to pay off a debt of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).

Little hope, however, came to the way of Obuson and other victims when she told her story to a client, who spoke English and involved anti-slavery activists, leading to a raid on the apartment,

According to the case, which is still under investigation, a police officer had posed as an interested client willing to buy off Obuson for 2 million rubbles, that's around thirty thousand dollars ($30,000), which led to the arrest of two Nigerians.

Eight other Nigerian women, between the ages of 16 and 22, also told Reuters how they were victims of violence and also came into the country as Super Eagles fans. The fan identity cards grant them access to the country without necessarily needing visas.

According to the Police in Russia, 1,863 Nigerians had not left the country as of January 1, 2019, six months after they came into the country for the World Cup, and at the time the IDs expired.

In September 2018, 22 years old Alifat Momoh was said to be the victim of murder by a man who refused to pay for sex.

Kenny Kehindo, an anti-slavery activist who works with non governmental organizations in Moscow, puts the figure of women who came into the country as fans at more than 2,000.