Voodoo Forces Africans into Prostitution

Thousands of African girls are forced into European brothels by traffickers using black magic. (Times photo)

"This is a lethal combination of criminal networks and so-called juju priests," Dr Michael Korzinski, a counselor with the Helen Bamber Foundation, a charity helping victims of torture, told the Sunday Times on June 21.

"The girl's own bodily fluids, her pubic hair and nail shavings are used," he explained.

"A whole variety of things are used to create this potion that they are then forced to drink or spread on their bodies. It can happen in the country of origin and it can happen in the UK."

Nearly 1.2 million people are trafficked each year — an estimated 120,000 into Europe alone.

There some 10,000 victims of human trafficking in the United Kingdom alone.

Evidence that juju rituals are being used in smuggling people into Europe came to light in 2001 when police found the mutilated remains of a young African boy.

The boy's throat had been slit, his head, arms and legs cut off and his body drained of blood before his torso was dumped in the river.

One trafficker was found to have kept dozens of bottles with hair and other soft body parts in them.

Black Magic

Sara, a 24-year-old Nigerian, was subjected to the black magic before she was trafficked into Britain.

"He took me to the juju man before we went," she told the Times, referring to her trafficker.

"He cut me with a razor blade on my back and on my breasts and took my blood. He cut my hair from my head and also from my armpits."

Sara was warned that she would die and her spirit be cast into hell if she returned home before her debt to the trafficker was paid off.

In Britain, she was forced into working as a prostitute in a brothel.

Mary, another Nigerian girl, was also brought into Britain in 2005 and forced into prostitution.

"They made me drink juju water before the men would arrive," she said of her daily routine in Britain.

She tried to escape the hellish brothel, but was caught by the owner.

"Once I tried to escape by stealing the keys while she was sleeping. But she woke up and beat me," Mary recalls.

"There was blood everywhere that day. It was gushing from my ear."

Mary lost her hearing in one ear after being savaged by the brothel's owner.

But she finally managed to escape when the brother keeper fled to the US.

In April, she was reunited with her two sons and has been granted refugee status.