When Blessing Okoedion arrived in Italy from Nigeria, she met a woman she was told to call Madam Faith, who explained to her the work rules.
First, she described the various types of police cars, and how she was supposed to run if any potential client opened their car doors, because it was probably an undercover cop. She must refuse nobody. Blessing felt deaf, as if everything Madam Faith told her dissipated as soon as the words entered her ears. She kept repeating that she had not come here to do that sort of work and that her recruiter in Nigeria, a woman named Alice she met at her local church, had told her that she would be working as a computer technician.
Madam Faith only laughed at her. Madam Faith told her to hide her money in her boot or men who worked for other madams would pretend to be clients and try to steal it from her. She told her that if she was scared, she should carry a knife or be prepared to defend herself with a shard of glass.
Blessing felt like she was in a nightmare. Her phone bill, rent and food would be extra. And, most importantly, if she got caught, Blessing should never denounce her or she would come and kill her. In the days that followed, Blessing had no choice but to sell her body under threat of rape and other violence. She did it reluctantly, hoping to find men like her first client who she had convinced to listen to her story instead of using her body.
Instead, she soon realized she was just merchandise, a machine for sex, a piece of meat. Blessing knew she needed money to escape , so she tried to hide some the next day. After her second day on the street, she decided to find a police station instead. She searched and searched, but she dared not ask any of the other girls because it was hard to know which women were madams keeping an eye on their girls.
