A rescued Nigerian migrant, Mercy Olugbenga, has recounted how she was confined for months, and nurses repeatedly took her blood so it could be used for her employer’s ailing mother while she lived in Libya.
Speaking on the ARISE TV Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, Mercy said that she took a decision to travel to Libya after selling family property to pay for her sick mother’s treatment.
According to her, she had dropped out of school at the age of 20 years and was lured to Libya with the promise of greener pastures to enable her to raise money to care for her sick mother.
Mercy, an indigene of Kabba in Kogi State, said she spent four years working in Libya.
Describing the harsh treatment of African migrants by some Libyan employers, she said, “What I experienced in Libya, not me alone, other Africans and other immigrants, other illegal migrants, those people they don’t like us.”
Her worst ordeal, she said, came at the last place she worked, where she was locked in a room for a year.
Mercy said she had originally been employed to care for the employer’s mother and do house chores, but became trapped in an exploitative situation once the woman’s medical needs emerged.
She explained that her employer was transfusing her blood to cater for the medical needs of the mother she was employed to care for.
Olugbenga pleaded for assistance to return to school, which she abandoned in 2018 at 300 Level.
