Four Ghanaian teenage sex slaves in Nigeria were on Thursday handed over to the Women and Juvenile Unit of the Police Service (WAJU) by the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) in Accra.

They hail from Tefle, Ave-Afiadenyigba and Afife, all in the Volta Region, and are aged between 14 and 18. Briefing the press in Accra, the Director of the GIS, Ms. Elizabeth Agyei said the four girls were handed over to her outfit at Aflao by officials of the Ghana High Commission in Lagos. The four sex slaves were arrested by the Nigerian Police when the hotel in which they operated was raided. When they were found to be Ghanaians, they were handed over to the Ghana High Commission in Lagos.

According to the girls, they were lured from Ghana on different occasions by a woman known as Abena and taken to Nigeria under the pretext of employing them in her shop. But on reaching Nigeria, Abena handed the girls over to two other women, Rejoice and Adwoa, who in turn sold them to Hawa, a Nigerian, at 15,000 Naira each for the purpose of engaging them in sex trade.

The girls have been in the business since last year, making between 1,500 Naira and 4,000 Naira for Hawa everyday. During their stay, Hawa did not pay them any money. But if on any occasion they were unable to make the amount, they were denied food and even punished. The girl also claimed that they slept with between 14 and 18 men daily during the period. Chief Inspector Rita Narh, Station Officer of WAJU, who received the girls, said that her outfit would undertake a full-scale investigation into the case in order to bring the perpetrators to book and also trace the girls parents. She therefore appealed to the public to volunteer information that would help the WAJU to locate the families of the girls for their integration.