Lebanese security forces have arrested a man suspected of putting a Nigerian domestic worker up "for sale" on a popular Facebook page used to trade everyday items such as furniture, food and shoes.
"Domestic worker of African citizenship (Nigerian) for sale with a new residency and full legal papers," an account under the name Wael Jerro posted on the page, named Buy and Sell in Lebanon. The exact date of the post remains unclear.
The suspect was arrested on Thursday by Lebanon's General Security agency, the country's leading intelligence agency, which also controls entry and exit from the small Mediterranean nation. General Security said an investigation was under way in the case, and warned that advertising people online violated the country's human trafficking laws, subjecting perpetrators to prosecution.
The arrest came after Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najem on Wednesday ordered the judiciary to follow up on the case, citing Lebanon's anti-human trafficking law. Lebanon's Ministry of Labour also released a statement saying anyone who advertises domestic workers online would be prosecuted.
Najem said in a statement that the case represented a "blatant violation of human dignity".
The case has sparked fury in Nigeria, where officials requested the Lebanese authorities to investigate the incident.
"The government is very angry," said Julie Okah-Donli, director-general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). "The Lebanese government should prosecute him and rescue other girls that have been sold or [are] about to be sold into slavery."
Many Nigerians also took to social media to express their outrage.
'Modern-day slavery'
Some 250,000 migrant domestic workers - most from sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana, and southeast Asian countries including Nepal and the Philippines - reside in Lebanon.
Domestic workers in Lebanon are legally bound to their employers through the country's notorious kafala system, which only allows them to end their contracts with the consent of employers.
The system has led to widespread abuse, ranging from the withholding of wages, to physical and sexual assault. Camille Abousleiman, Lebanon's former labour minister, has called it "modern-day slavery".
While Lebanon's Ministry of Labour says it is working to improve protection for domestic workers by amending the contract between them and their employers, experts say the abuse will continue until the kafala system is entirely abolished.
"Adopting a revised contract which addresses shortcomings is undoubtedly a step forward, but it's not enough," Diala Haidar, a Lebanon campaigner at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
"The Lebanese labour law explicitly excludes domestic workers from labour protections enjoyed by other workers such as minimum wage, overtime pay, compensation for unfair dismissal, and social security. The labour law needs to be amended to recognise domestic workers as workers and grant them full labour protections," she said.
General Security had said in 2017 that two domestic workers die every week in Lebanon. Videos often circulate of domestic workers trying to escape the homes of their employers by climbing down high buildings. Frequently, they are found dead.
Last month, the body of 23-year-old Ghanaian domestic worker Faustina Tay was found in a parking lot under the fourth-storey apartment of her employers. In the days leading up to her death, Tay had alleged repeated abuse by her employer and the agent who brought her to Lebanon and said she feared her life was in danger.
The employer has since been blacklisted, meaning he cannot hire any more domestic workers, while a criminal investigation is ongoing. The high-profile case, first reported by Al Jazeera, shed light on the conditions migrant workers face in Lebanon.
Despite the fact that most domestic workers arrive in Lebanon by legal means, the Facebook post has renewed calls in Nigeria for tougher measures to curb the activities of those involved in human trafficking - a big problem faced by a number of African countries.
"As long as traffickers are working about freely, making money, trafficking will not stop," Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, told Al Jazeera.
Last year, the Nigerian government began the repatriation of up to 20,000 girls who were trafficked to Mali.
The national agency fighting human trafficking said many of these girls ended up working as sex slaves in mining camps in Mali after they were tricked with promises of getting jobs in Europe.
In 2018, the government removed some 5,500 Nigerians from Libya following reports of abuse, slavery and torture.
"We shall, after COVID-19, engage countries where human trafficking is endemic with a view to rescuing and repatriating victims of trafficking as we did in Libya a few years ago," Okah-Donli said, referring to the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
"Human trafficking is a global problem and huge all over the world because of the large profit. It's an organised criminal network that cuts across local and international boundaries. more of it is for sexual and labour exploitation and of course organ harvesting," she added.
Al Jazeera
Related stories: Lebanese puts up Nigerian for sale on Facebook
Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'
Friday, April 24, 2020
Nigeria Defends Slow Pace of Virus Testing
Nigeria defended the slow pace of testing for the coronavirus amid a lockdown that’s paralyzed economic activity in its two main cities as concern over the government response to the outbreak grows.
The lockdown has kept more than 40 million people at home since March 30 and discontent is mounting in the country, which late February became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to identify a person with the virus. Health authorities have tested only 10,000 people out of a population of more than 200 million. Almost 900 infections have been reported, and 28 deaths.
Authorities have adopted a strategy of “managed acceleration” and won’t pool samples to multiply testing capacity as is currently being done in Ghana, which has rolled out one of the largest testing programs in the region, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director general for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
“I would rather go a little bit slower and get it right than speed into a situation that we will end up regretting,” he said during a briefing by the World Health Organization on Thursday.
There are signs that Nigeria’s weak health system won’t be able to cope with a larger outbreak. At least four private hospitals in the commercial hub Lagos closed temporarily or ‘until further notice’ because they had to be decontaminated. A laboratory in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria’s third-largest, shut after two workers tested positive. And reports that 150 people died in the state with the same name this week have added to fears that the government response is inadequate.
“Our performance has been a show of shame,” said Cheta Nwanze, lead partner with Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence. “It’s been completely uncoordinated, with different state governments doing different things at different times. We have essentially wasted four weeks of lockdown.”
The national pandemic response is based on a mix of the CDC’s guidelines and an existing influenza outbreak preparedness plan that will be turned into a single document, according to Sani Aliyu, chairman of Nigeria’s presidential task force on Covid-19. Nigeria had about 350 ventilators before the coronavirus outbreak, not all of them functional, and obtained at least 100 more in recent weeks, he said.
Still, the government is struggling to import the kits needed to enable existing tuberculosis and HIV centers to test for the coronavirus due to a global supply crisis, said Ihekweazu of the NCDC.
“Once we have these in, we will be able to quickly scale up testing across the country,” he said, without saying when they will arrive.
By Tope Alake
Bloomberg
The lockdown has kept more than 40 million people at home since March 30 and discontent is mounting in the country, which late February became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to identify a person with the virus. Health authorities have tested only 10,000 people out of a population of more than 200 million. Almost 900 infections have been reported, and 28 deaths.
Authorities have adopted a strategy of “managed acceleration” and won’t pool samples to multiply testing capacity as is currently being done in Ghana, which has rolled out one of the largest testing programs in the region, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director general for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
“I would rather go a little bit slower and get it right than speed into a situation that we will end up regretting,” he said during a briefing by the World Health Organization on Thursday.
There are signs that Nigeria’s weak health system won’t be able to cope with a larger outbreak. At least four private hospitals in the commercial hub Lagos closed temporarily or ‘until further notice’ because they had to be decontaminated. A laboratory in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria’s third-largest, shut after two workers tested positive. And reports that 150 people died in the state with the same name this week have added to fears that the government response is inadequate.
“Our performance has been a show of shame,” said Cheta Nwanze, lead partner with Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence. “It’s been completely uncoordinated, with different state governments doing different things at different times. We have essentially wasted four weeks of lockdown.”
The national pandemic response is based on a mix of the CDC’s guidelines and an existing influenza outbreak preparedness plan that will be turned into a single document, according to Sani Aliyu, chairman of Nigeria’s presidential task force on Covid-19. Nigeria had about 350 ventilators before the coronavirus outbreak, not all of them functional, and obtained at least 100 more in recent weeks, he said.
Still, the government is struggling to import the kits needed to enable existing tuberculosis and HIV centers to test for the coronavirus due to a global supply crisis, said Ihekweazu of the NCDC.
“Once we have these in, we will be able to quickly scale up testing across the country,” he said, without saying when they will arrive.
By Tope Alake
Bloomberg
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Nigerian woman, 68, gives birth to twins after four IVF attempts
A Nigerian woman has given birth to twins, a boy, and a girl at the age of 68.Margaret Adenuga went through three previous IVF procedures before finally having twins.
Her husband Noah Adenuga, 77 told CNN the couple, who married in 1974 had long desired to have a child of their own.
Adenuga said they never gave up even after the failed attempts.
The retired stock auditor told CNN, "I am a dreamer, and I was convinced this particular dream of ours will come to pass."
The babies were delivered via caesarian section at 37 weeks last Tuesday at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) but the hospital only recently made the news public to give the first-time mother time to recuperate, it said.
Dr. Adeyemi Okunowo, who delivered the babies, told CNN a specialist team was assembled at the hospital to monitor the pregnancy because of her age.
"As an elderly woman and a first-time mother, it was a high-risk pregnancy and also because she was going to have twins but we were able to manage her pregnancy to term," Okunowo told CNN.
Last year, a 73-year-old Indian woman was safely delivered of twin girls after she conceived through IVF and is reported to be the oldest person to give birth at that age.
Okunowo said even though older women are able to conceive through IVF, doctors must lay bare the medical risks associated with being pregnant at that age.
"There are age-related medical complications that come with being pregnant at that age such as the baby being born preterm. She's lucky but many may succumb to other complications during or after having a baby," he told CNN.
CNN
Why some Nigerians are gloating about Covid-19
In our series of letters from African writers, Nigerian novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani reflects on the different attitudes of the rich and poor towards coronavirus.
Many Nigerians gloat that Covid-19 is mainly targeting the country's elite, particularly politicians, despite warnings that the life-threatening respiratory illness could hit the poor as well.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has recorded more than 600 cases since the end of February - most of them people who had been abroad, and those they had interacted with after their return to Africa's most-populous state, which has a population of about 200 million.
So far, Nigeria's list of people who got or have died from Covid-19 includes President Muhammadu Buhari's chief of staff, politicians, heads of government agencies, former ambassadors and their aides or relatives.
These are the kind of people who normally jet off to the UK, Germany, or the US at the slightest headache because Nigeria's state hospitals are poorly funded, run-down, and lack adequate equipment.
The 2020 government budget allocates only about 4.5% of spending for health, less than the 15% target the African Union had set for governments in 2001.
Doctors frequently embark on strikes over salaries not paid for months.
Mocking politicians
Many of them seize any opportunity to work abroad - nearly 2,000 of the doctors in the UK's state-run National Health Service qualified in Nigeria, according to a report presented to the UK's parliament last year.
Nigerians spent more than $1bn ($800m) on treatment in overseas hospitals in 2013.
President Buhari promised to end "medical tourism" when he took power in 2015, but he himself spent more than four months in London in 2017 getting treatment for an undisclosed illness and subsequently returning to the UK capital for additional care.
But with borders closed and each country haunted by its own Covid-19 nightmare, Nigeria's big men and women are now forced to use their country's hospitals, prompting a stream of taunts and jokes.
"This is your punishment for not investing in your country's health system," some say.
"I thought our hospitals were not good enough for you," others say.
Some Nigerians also hoped that the "selectiveness" of the virus might be God's way of bringing about changes in their government.
They latched on to rumours that Mr Buhari, 72, had been infected by his chief of staff, and was gravely ill on a ventilator.
The less malicious folk shrouded their great hope in a prayer: "Let God's will be done."
'God pulled a fast one'
Indignant at the expressions of ill will towards his boss, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said: "Why do some people conjure nothing but evil? In 2017, while President Buhari had his medical challenge, they were on an orgy of negative wishes, misinformation, and disinformation.
"But God pulled a fast one on them. He brought the president back, as right as rain. Haven't they learned their lessons?"
The rumours finally ended after Mr Buhari - looking well - was videoed in a meeting with senior health officials.
A day later, on 29 March, Mr Buhari appeared on TV and ordered a 14-day lockdown of Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, neighbouring Ogun state, and the capital city Abuja, giving their 30 million residents just 24 hours to prepare to stay at home.
Mr Buhari subsequently extended the lockdown by two weeks, deepening fears about how the poor will survive in their overcrowded neighbourhoods, without water, electricity, and little food.
But all the gloating could come to a swift end.
Covid-19 could spread more rapidly beyond the elites, who could pass it on to their retinue of "servants" - drivers, cooks, nannies and security guards, among others - who in turn could infect their families and neighbours in slums found in every major city.
'Not for the rich alone'
Social-distancing and self-isolation in a typical Nigerian slum is impossible.
About 30 families often cram into a building, sharing the same bathroom and toilet. The potential disaster is unimaginable.
As Ogun governor Dapo Abiodun said at the 30 March launch of a Covid-19 isolation centre in his state: "Contrary to the erroneous belief, this virus is not for the rich or elite alone. Everyone is at risk."
So while the lockdown causes much inconvenience and hardship for all Nigerians, especially the poor, it helps to maintain the vast gulf that exists in society, thus preventing those at the top from transmitting the virus to those at the bottom.
Nigeria's gross inequality has often been criticised, and rightly so, but the spread of Covid-19 is definitely one area where the nation cannot afford to have equality.
BBC
Many Nigerians gloat that Covid-19 is mainly targeting the country's elite, particularly politicians, despite warnings that the life-threatening respiratory illness could hit the poor as well.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has recorded more than 600 cases since the end of February - most of them people who had been abroad, and those they had interacted with after their return to Africa's most-populous state, which has a population of about 200 million.
So far, Nigeria's list of people who got or have died from Covid-19 includes President Muhammadu Buhari's chief of staff, politicians, heads of government agencies, former ambassadors and their aides or relatives.
These are the kind of people who normally jet off to the UK, Germany, or the US at the slightest headache because Nigeria's state hospitals are poorly funded, run-down, and lack adequate equipment.
The 2020 government budget allocates only about 4.5% of spending for health, less than the 15% target the African Union had set for governments in 2001.
Doctors frequently embark on strikes over salaries not paid for months.
Mocking politicians
Many of them seize any opportunity to work abroad - nearly 2,000 of the doctors in the UK's state-run National Health Service qualified in Nigeria, according to a report presented to the UK's parliament last year.
Nigerians spent more than $1bn ($800m) on treatment in overseas hospitals in 2013.
President Buhari promised to end "medical tourism" when he took power in 2015, but he himself spent more than four months in London in 2017 getting treatment for an undisclosed illness and subsequently returning to the UK capital for additional care.
But with borders closed and each country haunted by its own Covid-19 nightmare, Nigeria's big men and women are now forced to use their country's hospitals, prompting a stream of taunts and jokes.
"This is your punishment for not investing in your country's health system," some say.
"I thought our hospitals were not good enough for you," others say.
Some Nigerians also hoped that the "selectiveness" of the virus might be God's way of bringing about changes in their government.
They latched on to rumours that Mr Buhari, 72, had been infected by his chief of staff, and was gravely ill on a ventilator.
The less malicious folk shrouded their great hope in a prayer: "Let God's will be done."
'God pulled a fast one'
Indignant at the expressions of ill will towards his boss, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said: "Why do some people conjure nothing but evil? In 2017, while President Buhari had his medical challenge, they were on an orgy of negative wishes, misinformation, and disinformation.
"But God pulled a fast one on them. He brought the president back, as right as rain. Haven't they learned their lessons?"
The rumours finally ended after Mr Buhari - looking well - was videoed in a meeting with senior health officials.
A day later, on 29 March, Mr Buhari appeared on TV and ordered a 14-day lockdown of Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, neighbouring Ogun state, and the capital city Abuja, giving their 30 million residents just 24 hours to prepare to stay at home.
Mr Buhari subsequently extended the lockdown by two weeks, deepening fears about how the poor will survive in their overcrowded neighbourhoods, without water, electricity, and little food.
But all the gloating could come to a swift end.
Covid-19 could spread more rapidly beyond the elites, who could pass it on to their retinue of "servants" - drivers, cooks, nannies and security guards, among others - who in turn could infect their families and neighbours in slums found in every major city.
'Not for the rich alone'
Social-distancing and self-isolation in a typical Nigerian slum is impossible.
About 30 families often cram into a building, sharing the same bathroom and toilet. The potential disaster is unimaginable.
As Ogun governor Dapo Abiodun said at the 30 March launch of a Covid-19 isolation centre in his state: "Contrary to the erroneous belief, this virus is not for the rich or elite alone. Everyone is at risk."
So while the lockdown causes much inconvenience and hardship for all Nigerians, especially the poor, it helps to maintain the vast gulf that exists in society, thus preventing those at the top from transmitting the virus to those at the bottom.
Nigeria's gross inequality has often been criticised, and rightly so, but the spread of Covid-19 is definitely one area where the nation cannot afford to have equality.
BBC
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Lebanese puts up Nigerian for sale on Facebook
A Lebanese identified as Wael Jerro has claimed on Facebook that he has a Nigerian woman for sale at $1000.
The director-general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons Dame Julie Okah-Donli told The Guardian on Tuesday that NAPTIP investigators were already working on the case.
Renee Abisaad, who first shared the news on her Instagram page, told The Guardian that Lebanese authorities were already involved in the matter.
Information of the biodata page of the international passport Jerro shared identified the Nigerian as Peace Ufuoma, born on May 19, 1988.
The passport was issued in Ibadan May 23, 2018, and will expire on May 22, 2023.
Although Wael Jerro’s account could not be found, the Facebook marketplace Jerro tagged in his post – Buy & Sell In Lebanon (Original) الأصلي – still appears on the social media platform.
Calls to the phone number listed on the Facebook page were not returned. But the operators of the page said it is only to facilitate buying and selling between interested parties and are not responsible for what is posted on the page.
“We are not legally responsible for an opinion, subject or comment, or for the direct broadcast, photos or publication published on our page from any subscriber,” information on the About section of the page said. The information was translated into English from Arabic.
The operators of the page also claimed that they are not responsible for the opinions, pictures and comments posted on the personal page of any of its subscriber and do “not check the subscriber or the personal subscriber page when agreeing to the request to join our page.”
Abisaad suggested Jerro may have deactivated his own page following a barrage of backlashes from Nigerians on Facebook.
“The whole nation went for him,” Abisaad, who was the second runner up in the 2013 edition of Miss Africa Lebanon said.
Lebanon again!
Two Nigerian women were rescued from Lebanon’s capital city Beirut last month.
One of the victims, an indigene of Oyo State, was trafficked to Beirut in September 2019. The other is an Ebonyi indigene was a salesgirl in Lagos before being trafficked to the Middle East country, also in September 2019.
“Both victims travelled by air as their visas and other travelling documents were procured by the suspect,” the Lagos Zonal Commander of the Agency, Mr Daniel Atokolo said.
Atokolo said a suspected trafficker was arrested and another mastermind, known as David, who was believed to have played a major role in the recruitment of the victims was at large.
Before the March rescue of the women, another Nigerian lady was freed from forced labour in the same country.
The story of 23-year-old Omolola Ajayi caught national attention after she posted a video on social media, detailing how she was deceived with a promise of a teaching job in Lebanon.
Another Nigerian woman Kikelomo Olayide, a mother of two, was rescued in February. She was rescued after her husband petitioned NAPTIP
The commander said the victim was allegedly trafficked by a 54–year-old Lebanese in October 2019.
Atokolo said that the suspect trafficked Olayide to Lebanon under the pretence of employing her as a caregiver to his aged mother in Lebanon.
“However, upon the victim’s arrival at Lebanon, she was received by an agent, who also handed her over to a family, where she was exploited as a domestic servant.
“The victim also reported that she was sexually harassed while working for the said family,” the NAPTIP Lagos Commander said.
According to Atokolo, when Olayide’s husband approached the suspect to return his wife, he was threatened.
“The suspect demanded that the victim would only be returned if the victim’s family provides another person to replace her. This is so sad,” the state commander said.
By Timileyin Omilana
The Guardian
The director-general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons Dame Julie Okah-Donli told The Guardian on Tuesday that NAPTIP investigators were already working on the case.
Renee Abisaad, who first shared the news on her Instagram page, told The Guardian that Lebanese authorities were already involved in the matter.
Information of the biodata page of the international passport Jerro shared identified the Nigerian as Peace Ufuoma, born on May 19, 1988.
The passport was issued in Ibadan May 23, 2018, and will expire on May 22, 2023.
Although Wael Jerro’s account could not be found, the Facebook marketplace Jerro tagged in his post – Buy & Sell In Lebanon (Original) الأصلي – still appears on the social media platform.
Calls to the phone number listed on the Facebook page were not returned. But the operators of the page said it is only to facilitate buying and selling between interested parties and are not responsible for what is posted on the page.
“We are not legally responsible for an opinion, subject or comment, or for the direct broadcast, photos or publication published on our page from any subscriber,” information on the About section of the page said. The information was translated into English from Arabic.
The operators of the page also claimed that they are not responsible for the opinions, pictures and comments posted on the personal page of any of its subscriber and do “not check the subscriber or the personal subscriber page when agreeing to the request to join our page.”
Abisaad suggested Jerro may have deactivated his own page following a barrage of backlashes from Nigerians on Facebook.
“The whole nation went for him,” Abisaad, who was the second runner up in the 2013 edition of Miss Africa Lebanon said.
Lebanon again!
Two Nigerian women were rescued from Lebanon’s capital city Beirut last month.
One of the victims, an indigene of Oyo State, was trafficked to Beirut in September 2019. The other is an Ebonyi indigene was a salesgirl in Lagos before being trafficked to the Middle East country, also in September 2019.
“Both victims travelled by air as their visas and other travelling documents were procured by the suspect,” the Lagos Zonal Commander of the Agency, Mr Daniel Atokolo said.
Atokolo said a suspected trafficker was arrested and another mastermind, known as David, who was believed to have played a major role in the recruitment of the victims was at large.
Before the March rescue of the women, another Nigerian lady was freed from forced labour in the same country.
The story of 23-year-old Omolola Ajayi caught national attention after she posted a video on social media, detailing how she was deceived with a promise of a teaching job in Lebanon.
Another Nigerian woman Kikelomo Olayide, a mother of two, was rescued in February. She was rescued after her husband petitioned NAPTIP
The commander said the victim was allegedly trafficked by a 54–year-old Lebanese in October 2019.
Atokolo said that the suspect trafficked Olayide to Lebanon under the pretence of employing her as a caregiver to his aged mother in Lebanon.
“However, upon the victim’s arrival at Lebanon, she was received by an agent, who also handed her over to a family, where she was exploited as a domestic servant.
“The victim also reported that she was sexually harassed while working for the said family,” the NAPTIP Lagos Commander said.
According to Atokolo, when Olayide’s husband approached the suspect to return his wife, he was threatened.
“The suspect demanded that the victim would only be returned if the victim’s family provides another person to replace her. This is so sad,” the state commander said.
By Timileyin Omilana
The Guardian
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