The Libyan Criminal Investigations Agency has busted a human trafficking gang from Nigeria and rescued five Nigerian girls forced into prostitution in Tripoli.
According to the Libyan Observer, the gang abducted the girls from their villages in Nigeria, smuggled them to Tripoli, where they were forced into prostitution.
“The Libyan Criminal Investigation Agency has busted a human smuggling gang from Nigerian and freed 5 Nigerian girls who had been abducted by gang members from their villages in Nigeria and smuggled into the Libyan capital of Tripoli where they were sold and forced into sex,” the report reads.
It was gathered that the agency, at the weekend, raided the house where the victims were locked up and arrested some suspects after a 17-year-old girl escaped.
Another report published by a Libyan news agency on Sunday, May 7, 2023, says the rescued girls have been handed over to the Consul General of the Nigerian Embassy while effort is ongoing to arrest other members of the criminal gang.
"The Criminal Investigation Office, Tripoli, arrests a gang that kidnaps girls from Nigeria and brings them to Libya, in a crime considered transnational,” the post read.
"On 5/5/2023, I received information from the investigation members of the Criminal Investigation Office at the Tripoli Security Directorate, stating that there is a girl who escaped from the place of a gang formation that is exploiting girls of Nigerian nationality, who are minors, in prostitution in exchange for sums of money.
"And in the presence of the girl, accompanied by one of the consular employees of the Criminal Investigation Office, Tripoli, to file the complaint and infer with her.
"She reported that she is a 17-year-old high school student who was kidnapped along with other girls in front of her school in Nigeria and brought to Libya via desert and illegal roads.
"She also reported that she was placed in a house on the outskirts of Tripoli with the other girls who are still locked inside the house and forced to practice prostitution."