For Aisha, sexual slavery was something you only heard about happening to others in television reports, until she found herself locked in a living “hell” in Libya.
“I had left a nightmare only to fall into hell,” said the migrant from Guinea, lured to the North African country that criminal gangs have turned into a den of racketeering.
Aisha fled her home country after five miscarriages: for her in-laws and the neighbourhood, she was either sterile or a witch.
But the young woman was simply diabetic.
“I just wanted to disappear from my country,” said Aisha, a graduate in hotel management.
She contacted a former classmate who appeared to have made a life for herself in neighbouring Libya and who lent Aisha money to join her.
“I didn’t even see the country. As soon as I arrived, I was locked up, I was a slave. She brought men to me and she got the money.”
Locked in a room with a toilet, she only saw the “friend” who had duped her when she was brought in food, “like a dog”.
“The men came drunk. I’d rather not remember it,” said Aisha, still trembling. “I thought my life was over.”
