The Trials of Repatriating a Nigerian Survivor of Human Trafficking
By Nelson Payoor and Prakriti
Sex and labour trafficking are insidious forms of modern-day slavery in the 21st century. South Asia, with India at its centre, is one of the fastest-growing regions for human trafficking in the world[1]. The latest official data on sex trafficking in India is from 2019 by the National Crime Records Bureau[2]. Thus, we do not have a comprehensive idea of how we are faring currently at tackling this issue. Data on the trafficking of foreign nationals into India is even more scarce, limited to a few select reports and articles[3] (often geographically limited) by NGOs and organizations. The actual number of cases may be higher due to the continuing trend of underreporting.
Most foreign nationals who are trafficked to India do not have recourse to the law and neither do they have access to civil society organizations that can assist them. Recently, PUCL was fortunate in being able to assist with the rescue and repatriation of Blessing[4], who hails from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. A student of Business Administration in Nigeria, Blessing was looking for a job to support her family financially. An acquaintance referred her to an ‘agent’ in Nigeria who claimed that she would be offered work as a domestic worker in India, at a much higher pay than she was earning at home.
Following specific instructions to mislead the Indian authorities, Blessing arrived in Mumbai in June 2023, claiming to be a ‘medical attendant’ to her ‘husband’ who was to receive treatment at a reputed hospital. As soon as they reached Mumbai, the man ran away. The ‘agent’ booked bus tickets for Blessing to reach Bengaluru, where another Nigerian woman took her to a ‘Paying Guest’ accommodation. Blessing was told to observe what kind of job these women were doing and that she would be given a job after 2 months of her stay.
Soon, Blessing figured out that these women were sex workers. On enquiry, one of them told her that Nigerians who come to India only do sex work. Appalled, Blessing refused. The woman flew into a rage and along with the other women, beat her grievously, locking her in the washroom. The situation was horrific – the other women used to urinate and excrete next to Blessing. They soon also tore her visa, passport, and other documents. A few days later, another lady snuck into the house and opened the doors for her, instructing her to leave immediately otherwise she would be tortured.
Getting in Touch with PUCL
The minute Blessing escaped, she managed to immediately contact her friend Richard. Richard leveraged his network as the former Secretary General of the International Young Catholic Students (IYCS) to finally get through to Nelson, an advocate at the Resource Centre for Prison Rights and a member of PUCL Bengaluru. Roshan (from the Alumni Association of St Joseph’s College of Law) and Nelson immediately arranged accommodation for Blessing at a shelter home. However, without her documents, she had to be relocated to another shelter home named Sri Gurukula Vidyapeetha. A continuing concern for the members of PUCL Bengaluru and Alternative Law Forum (Hari and Poorna) was that without documents, she could be arrested.
On 6th October 2023, Blessing sent a letter to the Station House Officer, Inspector of Pulikeshi Nagar PS, with the help of PUCL, explaining her situation and loss of passport and visa. The next day (07.10.2023) Hari, Nelson and Poorna called the inspector at Pulikeshi Nagar PS and enquired about the loss of passport. They were told to file a missing complaint report on the Karnataka State Police website for loss of Passport under section 155 Cr.P.C. After this, Blessing obtained a police acknowledgement/report of the complaint that was lodged.
On the same day (6th October), Blessing also approached the FRRO and submitted a letter regarding her situation. The FRRO asked her to approach the Nigerian High Commission in Delhi. With support, Blessing e-mailed the Nigerian High Commission, who got in touch 2 weeks later to enquire about her. Fortunately, Blessing had photos of her ID card and one page of her passport with her. Using this, her identity as a citizen was validated and an ‘Emergency Travel Certificate’ was issued.
Arrival, Stay, and Processes in Delhi
Blessing arrived in Delhi in late November, where she was received at the airport by Prakriti (activist, campaigner-researcher, and a friend of PUCL). Prakriti was referred to PUCL for support by Kavita Srivastava, National President, PUCL. Blessing was taken to the Nigerian High Commission and then to the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office (FRRO) where the process of repatriation was explained to them.
As Blessing’s situation was unique, there were two alternatives to the submission of documents. One, if the documentation was to be obtained from the night shelter, a letter from the night shelter with the letterhead stating Blessing’s duration of stay would have to be provided. Two, if the documentation was to be obtained from the “friend’s” place where Blessing was staying in Bengaluru, the original and photocopy of the rent agreement, electricity bill, Aadhaar card and a letter from the friend stating that Blessing had been staying at their place – all this had to be submitted. All this does not include the mandatory required documents of photocopies of old passports and visas etc. At this stage, there was no mention of the fact that an FIR had been filed for Blessing’s missing passport, as it may have unnecessarily complicated the process further.
After understanding these requirements and that the exit permit application can be filed online, Blessing and Prakriti went in search of a night shelter or a shelter home where Blessing could be put up, albeit for an undecided duration. At first, they went to a night shelter in Karol Bagh, which provides refuge for homeless women in Delhi. The layout was such that the beds were spread out across a large hall (with the provision of a spent mattress, bedsheet and a thin blanket) and the food served was entirely vegetarian. The caretakers at the shelter also looked slightly curious and skeptical of Blessing and were communicating mostly in Hindi, which Prakriti realized might be a problem since Blessing was only able to communicate in English.
Thankfully, Kavita was able to arrange accommodation and shelter for Blessing at Shakti Shalini in Jangpura, New Delhi. Thus, Blessing finally reached Shakti Shalini where she would stay until April and the completion of her repatriation process.
Blessing’s stay at Shakti Shalini was smooth for the most part and upon her arrival, she was assigned a counselor who would regularly speak with her. Shakti Shalini’s office was at a distance from the shelter home, with the location of the latter being confidential for the safety and privacy of its residents. Survivors from various backgrounds seek refuge at Shakti Shalini, having survived and escaped conditions of domestic abuse, forced marriage, human trafficking, sex trafficking etc. From Prakriti’s conversations with Blessing and her counsellor Mikansha, it was clear that Blessing was traumatized by her experience and slow to open up and share her experience. As time went on, her anxiety grew since the waiting period to receive approval for her exit from India was then indefinite.
The arrangement at Shakti Shalini was such that its residents would remain occupied and upskill themselves while their legal and other procedures continued. Communication of the residents with others via telephone or video call had to be restricted for reasons of safety and privacy – the residents including Blessing could make calls only once they were outside the shelter home space. They could briefly step out of the shelter home gate and make a call after informing the caretaker who would hand over their phone; the phones were kept in the custody of the caretaker at the shelter.
There was a roster with a weekly rotation of duties at the shelter which included washing utensils, sweeping and mopping the residence, cooking etc. There were various workshops in which a resident could participate, including crocheting, sewing, learning computer science etc. Blessing shared that she showed an aptitude for and completed her course in computer science for which she also received a certificate.
However, there were tensions at the shelter which she would often confide about to her counsellor Mikansha and Prakriti – the women residents would sometimes team up and badger Blessing into doing more than her assigned share of the work. She was advised to bring this up in the weekly meetings on Friday but she decided to wait this out. Blessing recounted distancing herself from the conversations of the residents as she found them to be toxic, rude and unnecessarily vile. This is not to say that the residents were entirely at fault, but it goes to show the alienation that a non-Indian may feel in spaces such as Indian shelter homes from women and the social backgrounds and contexts from which the residents often come in – often unstable, of unhealthy familial or relational contexts etc.
Blessing did make a few friends, who often gave her gifts of clothing and food. Whenever possible, they would take her out for recreational activities which helped uplift her mood from time to time. The shelter home also celebrates every festival, which meant that Blessing joyfully recalled having biryani for the first time during the festival of Eid and celebrating Holi with water and colours earlier this year.
There was a brief period where Blessing felt hopeless about the progression of the case, especially in the weeks after the police verification at the shelter home had happened and the questioning had been a tad bit on the aggressive side. She knew that cases such as hers could take anywhere from months to years to reach closure. She had also witnessed one or two of the residents at the shelter home escaping the shelter home and attempting suicide as a result of the mental strain and their precarious condition, which led to her thinking that perhaps ending her life could be a solution to the pain and uncertainty of the wait. Her counsellor and Prakriti spoke to her in great detail about it and assured her that this was not a solution and that regardless of the duration of the process, there were people who were looking out for her and wanted her to remain hopeful as well.
Expatriation Process (November through April)
Our contact person at the Nigerian High Commission helped us with the monthly renewal of the Emergency Travel Certificate (ETC). The ETC could only be renewed thrice, after which a new one had to be issued. Given the time that the processes took, a fresh ETC had to be issued once, which we were informed would cost ₹3000.
Already burdened with the incurred costs which we were paying out of our own pockets, we asked if this amount could be waived off as the delay was due to the time being taken by the FRRO. However, he informed us that this payment was mandatory and without this, there would be no issuing of a fresh ETC. However, when Prakriti, Blessing and Rukhsar (one of the caretakers at Shakti Shalini who accompanied Blessing) reached the High Commission for the required paperwork, there was no receipt provided for the amount given. We understood this to be a bribe forced by this employee who knew of the precarity of the situation and took advantage of it. This bred a lack of trust in our seemingly reliable and helpful contact with whom we subsequently kept our communication to the bare minimum, only contacting him when necessary. It was also too late to look for another contact at the High Commission without jeopardizing the case.
The FRRO processes and application for the Exit Permit work was mostly done online, and we visited the FRRO Office at RK Puram, Delhi only at the beginning and at the end, to inquire about whether the physical copy of the Exit Permit had to be obtained from the Office or if the printout of the soft copy would be sufficient.
Journey Back Home
After a long and arduous process, the exit permit was finally issued by the FRRO on the 18th of April after payment of a huge ‘fine’ of ₹50,000. After this, Blessing’s tickets for her journey back home had to be booked very soon as the ETC and exit permit had an expiration date – time was of the essence. The team coordinated with Blessing’s friend and ex-employer Chika and his friend Kenneth from Nigeria, as they both had agreed to finance Blessing’s tickets back home. This was a huge relief as Blessing’s financial condition meant she would not have been able to arrange the tickets on her own and with the supporting team bearing the other necessary costs, it was difficult for us to have raised the ticket amount.
Post-return: Blessing’s status; our learnings on a personal and institutional level etc.
Once Blessing had reached her destination airport, Chika her friend received her. There was a minor delay and issue with the immigration procedure at the destination, which led to a brief panic for us in India. However, after three or four hours, Blessing was reunited with her friend and within the same week, was back with her sister and mother. She spoke with us on video call once she was back. The joy and relief on her face were palpable.
Blessing’s case and journey of escaping the harrowing possibility of being pushed into sex trafficking is not her story alone but of many other foreigners and Nigerian women. In her case, the return journey was fortunately more fast-paced than usual – otherwise, it usually takes at least a few years, if not decades, for the survivors to return to their homes.
Our learnings on a personal and institutional level were multifold.
Prakriti’s view: on a personal level, it was exhausting to imagine the helpless waiting that Blessing had to do, of which my only means of being able to empathize with Blessing was second-hand frustration and anxiety. I would visit her as often as possible and bring along chocolates, biscuits and noodles which she so loved but which were not provided by the shelter home staff themselves, due to understandable constraints. The few gifts and these small acts were a way of alleviating not just Blessing’s stress but also my own. I thought that perhaps these tokens may also act as physical reminders of hope and connection in moments when Blessing may be alone. As an activist and gender studies scholar, it became important to continually remind myself of what I already knew but was now living the fact – survivors of larger structural injustices need to be humanized, treated as such, and understood in all their humanity. Hearing Blessing speak about being judged for the way she spoke, dressed etc. brought into sharp focus the general idea of how people expect a “good” survivor to be, and a “bad” survivor to be – the enforced binary. The latter does not conform to the “ideal” survivor’s image – one who is continually grieving what they underwent, is affected to the extent where they default to being reclusive, speaking little and with great depth. Blessing did not conform to these ideas, at least not entirely. She accepted small moments of joy as and when they came, despite the larger picture. This may not have been palatable for many, but I was glad to see that with the right support and encouragement, others’ perception of how she should present as a survivor, did not affect her drastically.
On an institutional level, being met with the realities of the time taken and the perils encountered at each step, with each institution, was a good learning experience for further such cases that will inevitably come up.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1DY1RO/
[2] https://ncrb.gov.in/uploads/nationalcrimerecordsbureau/custom/1653549986_Missingpage-merged-3.pdf
[4] Full name not revealed for privacy