'I miss my people' Nigerian schoolgirls trapped as sex workers in Ivory Coast

The first French phrases Sara learned when she arrived in the Ivory Coast city of Bouaké were "Alors baiser" and "c'est douce", to initiate sexual activity and then to fake pleasure during the act.

- Eromo Egbejule

The Nigerian teenager had been told by the daughter of her mother's best friend that she was going to the city to sell body lotion. Instead, a "madam" who had paid for her travel without her knowledge, sent her to brothels in the city every night.

Sara says she is paid 3,000-5,000 Central African Francs (CFA) -between £3.90 and £6.50 - for every man she sleeps with for a "short-time" and 25,000 CFA for an overnight stay. The money is split three ways between the brothel, Sara and the madam.

Three months after arriving in Bouaké, Sara is still trying to earn enough to pay off debts of 2.5m CFA to the madam for travel, clothes, sustenance and bribes paid to agents, so she can return to Nigeria.

"She [the madam] took my Nigerian sim card when I came here, so I couldn't call my people at home for the first month," says Sara, who now goes by the name Sugar and refused to give her age.

Trafficking is a major crisis in Nigeria. The UN estimates between 750,000 and 1 million people are being forced into begging, prostitution, domestic servitude, armed conflict and labour exploitation every year. Some are trafficked out of the country.

Sara is one of thousands of Nigerian female sex workers scattered across towns and cities in Ivory Coast, according to Nigerian officials. The girls and women are mostly trafficked by agents taking advantage of record unemployment in Nigeria with promises of better paid work. Ten years ago, the Nigerian naira was triple the value of the CFA; today N1 is equivalent to 0.38 CFA.