A NIGERIAN undergraduate, Mercy Oluwagbenga, has shared harrowing details of her ordeal while working in Libya, revealing that she was beaten, exploited, and forced to donate blood for the sick mother of her employer.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Thursday monitored by News Point Nigeria, Oluwagbenga, who hails from Kabba in Kogi State, recounted how she was trapped in domestic servitude and denied wages for months.
According to her, the abuse began when she started pressing for her unpaid salary.
“The first place I worked was okay within three months. The first month, I asked them for my salary, and they said that they wouldn’t give it to me until their dad came back because he was supposed to pay me.
“The second month, the same thing happened. The third month when their father came back, I asked again, but they wouldn’t reply. Instead, they started withdrawing my blood because their mom was sick,” she said.
Oluwagbenga explained that at first, she thought the blood tests were routine health checks, but she became alarmed when it became consistent and always conducted by the same nurse without any hospital supervision.
Her resistance to further blood withdrawals triggered brutal assaults.
“I refused to let them take my blood; that’s when the beating started,” she recalled.
The young woman narrated that several attempts to seek help failed. She discovered that the agent who facilitated her journey was already in prison, leaving her with no recourse.
“I tried to run, but there was no way out because I was locked up. The day I attempted to escape, they double-crossed me and beat me until I fainted,” she said.
She added that she was further isolated by being denied stable communication. Her Libyan employers changed her SIM card every month, only allowing her to use a phone for monitoring purposes while she cared for their ailing mother.
The Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described Oluwagbenga as “one of the lucky ones,” noting that many other Nigerians attempting irregular migration had died in the Sahara Desert or the Mediterranean Sea, while some remain untraceable.
Dabiri-Erewa reiterated her warning that irregular migration amounted to “voluntary suicide,” urging young Nigerians to pursue safe and legal migration pathways.
She assured that NiDCOM would work to ensure Oluwagbenga’s rehabilitation and reintegration back into society.
For Oluwagbenga, survival came at a high personal cost, but her story now serves as a sobering reminder of the risks of unsafe migration.