Steep rise in the number of Nigerian prostitutes working in Italy is being linked to the arrival in the country of well-organized Nigerian mafias, which are using violence and religious rites to terrify trafficked women into submission, police say.

Police say their operations this year have revealed the presence in Italy of a host of Nigerian gangs with names such as the , the Vikings, the Buccaneers, the Eiye and the Maphites.

The gangs have arrived in Italy as the number of Nigerian women sailing to the country from Libya has risen from 1,454 in 2014 to 10,624 between January and the end of November.

Of those, as many as 80% are forced to work as prostitutes, according to the International Organization for Migration.

With prices for sex with girls as young as 14 starting at around $10, 1 in 2 street prostitutes in Italy today is Nigerian.

I stayed on the street, pressured by my madam, to save my mother. My message to girls back in Nigeria is, ‘Don’t come.’— Anna, a Nigerian woman who said she was forced into prostitution
Seventeen members of the mafia were arrested last month, including the group’s “head of zone” for Italy, taken into custody in Verona, and the “minister of defense” in Palermo. The latter was said to be responsible for singling out errant members for machete attacks.

“Our probe showed how gangs like the are running the whole prostitution pipeline, which brings trafficked women from Nigeria to Italy,” said an investigator in Palermo who declined to be named because he was not allowed to speak on the record.

Women are usually fooled into believing they will be given regular jobs in Europe by traffickers who stage voodoo rites in which the women promise to pay back the cost of their travel, authorities said.

Upon arrival, police said, the women are told they must work as prostitutes until they pay off debts of about $30,000.

Refugees disembark the Topaz Responder, a Migrant Offshore Aid Station vessel, on Nov. 24 in Vibo Valentia, Italy.
The police official said former prostitutes often manage the women, but mafia members are on hand to punish them if they try to escape.

“If women rebel, it won’t be their madams who punish them, but ,” he said.

Anna, 40, who declined to give her last name because of the sensitivity of the topic, said she was forced into prostitution for three years after being told by traffickers she would pick fruit in Italy. She said she was warned that her mother in Nigeria would be hurt if she fled.



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