A woman who said she was trafficked from Nigeria under false pretenses to work as a sex slave in Burkina Faso's mining sites, walks through a row of tent in the Secaco mining town June 12, 2020. As part of a months-long investigation into sex trafficking and the gold mining industry, The Associated Press met with nearly 20 Nigerian women who said they had been brought to Burkina Faso under false pretenses, then forced into prostitution.
In December 2019, while the madam was away, Blessing finally got the courage to escape. With the help of local residents, she and six other women left the encampment and walked to safety, ultimately ending up in a United Nations transit center for migrants in the capital city of Ouagadougou.
As a result, the country not only struggles with trafficking within its borders but has also been identified as a transfer point for trafficking women into other countries, according to reports from the US State Department. Today, Burkina Faso is the fastest-growing gold producer in Africa, and currently the fifth largest on the continent after South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Mali. Gold is the nation’s most important export, according to a February report by the German-based research group GLOCON. The industry employs about 1.5 million people and was worth about $2 billion in 2019.
Gold from Burkina Faso is also likely used to make products sold by companies in a number of industries, including the technology sector, according to conflict mineral reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Experts and local officials say most documented human trafficking cases of women appear at small-scale gold mines, not the larger industrial mines.
Prostitution exists in a legal gray area in Burkina Faso — it’s not illegal, but soliciting it is. Police say it’s hard to prove if someone has been trafficked into sex work because women fear retaliation from criminal networks. Joy, a divorced mother of four, said she arrived early in 2020 because she couldn’t make enough money in Nigeria to support her children. The 31-year-old was told she’d work in a shop. Upon arrival, she was given a condom and taken to a mining site for prostitution, she said.
Boukary Ouedraogo, the police commissioner in Bobo-Dioulasso, said that on many occasions when a trafficker or madam was arrested, community leaders have tried to negotiate for their release, which points to complicity within the Nigerian community, he said.
Forced to sleep with? Forced to have sex with. Say it. There’s no place for euphemism here.
This sin....MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL!!!!!!!
I can guarantee 'sleeping' is not what she was forced to do.
It's called trafficking, not 'luring' ... 'Being forced' is called rape ... They're ugly words, but it's an ugly situation you're reporting on
Please she was forced into prostitution. Use the right language.
She was repeatedly RAPED! Wth 'forced to sleep with'.....that's rape.
This is misleading. Call it what it is: SHE WAS FORCED TO HAVE SEX WITH MEN SHE DID NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH, SHE WAS REPEATEDLY RAPED. She did not 'sleep' with these men. StopHumanTrafficking
And thats our business because why were done killing women and children in Afghanistan
YOU SPELLED RAPE WRONG!! you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Isn't Burkina Faso a spot on the map that could be called a shit hole?
“Forced to sleep with” is rape.
'Forced to sleep with dozens of men' is a messed-up way to describe someone being sex trafficked & repeatedly raped!
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Growth in Burkina Faso gold mining fuels human traffickingSECACO, Burkina Faso (AP) — For months, human traffickers beat and drugged Blessing, hauling the 27-year-old from one gold mine encampment to the next, where each night she was forced to sleep with dozens of men for less than $2 a person. The madam who lured Blessing to the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso with promises of a hair salon job, threatened to kill her if she tried to run away. “Nobody comes to your rescue,” said Blessing, wiping tears from her cheeks during a recent interview. had a double mind when i wanted to invest but i thank God 🙏 i have invested with the right account manager KevinKatch2 i got my money back with profit just as he said, i want everyone to start investing with KevinKatch2 he's the best trader. Oh africa! This is africa as usual. The evil continent That's good but bad for the women but who will miss them not me
Source: AP - 🏆 728. / 51 Read more »
Growth in Burkina Faso gold mining fuels human traffickingSECACO, Burkina Faso (AP) — For months, human traffickers beat and drugged Blessing, hauling the 27-year-old from one gold mine encampment to the next, where each night she was forced to sleep with dozens of men for less than $2 a person. The madam who lured Blessing to the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso with promises of a hair salon job, threatened to kill her if she tried to run away. “Nobody comes to your rescue,” said Blessing, wiping tears from her cheeks during a recent interview. Fire the employees who take prostitutes. Muhammad Qasim’s dreams are a warning to the Muslim ummah. As they are coming true, many across the world are talking about them, and newspapers and interviews are also being conducted on these dreams. Learn more at or search ‘Muhammad Qasim Dreams’ Yeah ... Women who were trafficked are NOT working in brothels ... It's rape ... Try again ap
Source: AP - 🏆 728. / 51 Read more »
Burkina Faso fighters seek protection with spiritual ritualsOUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Antoine Ouedraogo didn’t run when Islamic extremist fighters killed his colleagues only feet away from him in northern Burkina Faso. Instead, the 53-year-old says, he simply recited a secret word and became invisible. The father of 17, who used to arrest bandits and now fights the extremists as part of a local defense militia, says a secret medicine he took as a child continues to protect him from bullets and machetes. “As adults, we still have that medicine inside of us,” he said. “Even now if something happens, I can disappear.” Courage is courage is courage it doesn’t matter where you get it from. I’m glad these people are standing up. thanks for this news They have a great tactic .
Source: AP - 🏆 728. / 51 Read more »
Armed assailants kill dozens in eastern Burkina FasoThe attack came a week after two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist were killed in an ambush by militants in the same region.
Source: trtworld - 🏆 101. / 63 Read more »
Growth in Burkina Faso gold mining fuels human traffickingSECACO, Burkina Faso (AP) — For months, human traffickers beat and drugged Blessing, hauling the 27-year-old from one gold mine encampment to the next, where each night she was forced to sleep with dozens of men for less than $2 a person. The madam who lured Blessing to the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso with promises of a hair salon job, threatened to kill her if she tried to run away. “Nobody comes to your rescue,” said Blessing, wiping tears from her cheeks during a recent interview. had a double mind when i wanted to invest but i thank God 🙏 i have invested with the right account manager KevinKatch2 i got my money back with profit just as he said, i want everyone to start investing with KevinKatch2 he's the best trader. Oh africa! This is africa as usual. The evil continent That's good but bad for the women but who will miss them not me
Source: AP - 🏆 728. / 51 Read more »