"‘Modern slavery’: Trapped in Iraq, Nigerian women cry out for help" 27 December 2024.

“I just want to go home and treat myself, but I can’t do that,” Agnes said on a phone call from Basra, where she is holed up in a hostel belonging to the recruiting firm that hired her from Nigeria last year. “The man has refused to pay my salary...

She is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are caught in a transnational labour network that often sees women from Nigeria and other African countries deceived into domestic servitude in Iraqi cities...

They get the women to agree, process visas and send them off to recruitment firms in Iraq for a commission of about $500 per woman...

...Where they are often expected to work more than 20 hours a day for monthly pay of $200 to $250...

In many homes, the women are subject to inhumane treatment: They go days without food, are beaten and are not provided living quarters...

Some, like Agnes, also face sexual abuse and rape...Who had faced so much abuse and torture that they ended up dead...

These women often lack knowledge of what a normal workplace should be like because the Nigerian recruiters target women from rural communities...

She paid 100,000 naira ($64) to a local recruiting agent...

Angered that she’d caused a loss, two employers from the firm descended on Agnes, she said, hitting her, punching her and smashing her mobile...

The agency has refused to send her back to Nigeria, insisting that she has one more year to work on her contract, despite her debilitating pain...

Al Jazeera is not revealing the name of the company in order to protect the women, but we did seek official responses regarding the firm from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of Iraq’s police. We have not yet received a response...

...The country is both a source and destination country for trafficked victims with an estimated 221,000 people currently in slavery-like conditions...

Instead, the women were “sold” to Iraqi firms for about $3,500 and forced to work in dire conditions...

Activists blamed Nigerian authorities for failing to regulate the industry and allowing groups of women to head to Middle Eastern countries for domestic work without proper documentation or a system to track them...

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