Mary's Story: The school that was a brothel

Description

Fighting broke out in Mary’s village in Nigeria. Her family were killed but she managed to escape. Then she met a woman who offered to take her to Europe to work as a housemaid. She would also be able to go to school there. Mary agreed and they set off on the journey. In the desert, soldiers shot at their car, it overturned, and many passengers were injured. They had to stay in hiding in a cave for ten days, with very little food and water. People became desperate with hunger and thirst. Finally, another car picked them up and brought them to Libya. Mary was perplexed. Back home, she had heard that Libya was a bad place, a place to avoid. How come she now had arrived there and not to Europe? The woman told her not to worry, she had a sister there and Mary could work for her for a while. But first she would send Mary to a school. A man came and took Mary to a house, where she found many women, some of them half naked. It was not a school, it was a brothel. She was locked in a room and savagely beaten until she resigned herself to her fate. She worked as a prostitute for one year in that place. Then she became sick and the owner did not want her anymore. She was released and a friend helped her to get medical treatment. The friend also arranged with a smuggler to send Mary across the sea to Europe. The sea journey was dramatic. The boat was a small inflatable dinghy and badly overloaded. After two days at sea some people had a nervous breakdown. One man wanted to burst the rubber boat with a knife, another tried to jump overboard. Mary says that all what she experienced on this horrible journey from Nigeria to Europe has affected her psyche. She is traumatized and feels her brain is not working properly. She is warning others not to take that road, which only leads to beatings, rape, and other horrible things.

Metadata

Published to Youtube on: 28/06/2020

Archived on: 30/09/2025

Original URL (may no longer be available): https://youtube.com/watch?v=KUBdMHpSd8k