BROUGHT TO UK, LOCKED UP AND FORCED TO WORK
Award-winning mum tells of frightening ordeal of being trafficked from Nigeria
AMOTHER of two has described how she was trafficked to the UK from Nigeria and locked in a house, where she was forced to work. Omonigho Idegun eventually managed to escape to Wales, where she has built a new life after being helped by a charity.
“I was terrified. I had my passport taken away and was made to work and give them all the money I got,” she said.
The 42-year-old science graduate was working in a hotel in Nigeria when a guest offered her the chance of a job if she studied in England.
Flying with him to London she became suspicious when he took her passport away after she came through immigration.
“I had not travelled before so did not know the procedure. He took me to a house in London where I met a guy who was the caretaker. They said money I earned would be for my school fees and a lady told me if I behaved I would get an apartment.”
Frightened for her safety, Omonig- ho did as she was told.
“I was treated like...I don’t know. There was no dignity. The house was locked and I didn’t have a key. There were other ladies there who I met. It was very frightening.
“They took money you earned to do shopping and if you didn’t work they didn’t do the shopping so you had no food.”
Three months into her ordeal Omonigho escaped, when her captors left the door open by mistake one day.
“I ran into the street and asked a gentleman for help. He did help me but told me not to go to the police be- cause I had no papers.”
Unsure of what to do with no money to get home, no passport and not knowing her way around London, Omonigho worked underground in catering for a time before meeting a man who later became the father of her two children.
Eventually she was helped by a charity, which moved her first to Birmingham and then to North Wales in 2011, where she now lives with her nine-year-old daughter and son, six.
Since then Omonigho, who has been helped by Cardiff-based charity BAWSO, has been granted permission to stay in the UK. She passed a Btech in catering and hospitality at Coleg Cambria, where she won a Student of the Year prize in 2015.
Omonigho’s son has non-verbal autism and, as well as mentoring women who have suffered domestic abuse, she fundraises for charities and set up a beauty pageant for children with special needs last year, The Little Angels pageant. It attracted entrants from across England and Wales and will run again this year.
Omonigho was recognised for her efforts in overcoming violence with an award at the Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Association Awards 2017 in Cardiff this week.