Child Trafficking

Emem, was only 10 years old when her aunt whom she lived with discovered she was pregnant.

It came as a shock to both Emem and her aunt because the aunt never knew Emem had started menstruating and Emem not knowing what it meant to be menstruating also looked very dumb about the situation.

Emem was taken from the village after her parents died of strange illnesses to Port harcourt by her aunt where her aunt lived with her family. Imaobong, Emem’s aunt ensured Emem worked for every cloth she put on her back, food she eat, water she drank and the space in which she laid her head at nigh to sleep. She ensured Emem did all house chores no matter how much it seemed to be Emem did it.

At some point even her kids begin to feel sorry for her since she could not read or write in Efik or English Languages at her age talk less of saying a correct sentence of 5words in English language, despite all Emem never complained once until she started menstruating, then she told her aunt in her dialect that she got injured between her thighs and has since been bleeding non-stop, despite that, the aunt did not do anything about it or give it a second thought that she could have started her period.

Emem also told her aunt once that her husband beat her and she was in pains between her legs[ this was after the husband raped her and beating her was the only way she could express what the man did to her as she was a stack illiterate]. Open hearing this she was beaten by her aunt for daring to report her husband to her because she felt her husband was right to have disciplined her for any wrong she must have done in her absence. This continued and Emem never hesitated to tell her aunt every other time it happened. After sometime, Emem took very ill and when she was taken to the hospital, it was discovered she was pregnant, In shock the aunt gave her A resounding slap right at the doctor’s office, saying she had started prostituting an flirting around with the boys on the street. She tried to make her own understand that she did not understand what she was saying, but they aren’t kept insisting right in the doctor’s office that she was being a slut and Liar all at the same time.

As it was expected of the ones reaction to be, she was sent back to the village, without anything despite all her pleas. The little girl at some point had to tell the aunt it was her husband that molested her, but this information only earned her some more cruel punishments till she was sent back to the village.

20years down the line, Emem was at the office when an aged looking man was brought into her office to be introduced as her new driver, she immediately recognised him as her aunt’s husband and decided she was comfortable working with him. Her children [she gave birth to a set of twins] especially her son was rumoured to be a carbon copy of her driver, and it was at that point the now successful Emem opened up to the man who still did not recognize her to remind him of  20years ago, tears definitely rolled down their faces as she came to discover that the aunt found out years after she left that he had being molesting all the young maids she brought to the house and was a serial womanizer, she also found out she will ill with some STDs and since she was working in one of the prestigious Oil and gas companies, she was able to take good care of herself after getting a separation from her husband who turned out to be her driver years after.

This story has a seemingly beautiful end but imagine the tables were in reverse?
Some little girls lose their lives during child birth, some die from trying to have abortions other mild but serious consequences of some of these acts are the girls get infected with un treatable STDs, some lose their wombs from trying to abort or give birth, some live with Obstetrics fistula all their lives due to injuries they have during childbirth as minors.

These are all worrisome situations in a country as ours and it brings us to ask, how can we change this narrative? – should men become more helpful with helping their wives with house chores? should recruitment agencies ensure there is a good supply of qualified maids or helps? Should the government solely bear the responsibility of regulating child labour and its abuse? Should relatives or the government take over care of an orphaned minor? These and many more are matters to be considered in the abolition of domestic child abuse and trafficking.