Whenever
we hear stories of young girls being forced into sex slavery and
prostitution, it always leaves us feeling really sad. The story of a 42
year-old Nigerian man who used witchcraft rituals to force terrified
teenagers to work as sex slaves in the UK is no different.
Osezua Osolase was on the surface, a recycling worker
living in a terraced house in Gravesend, Kent. But he was in fact the
British linchpin of a multi-million pound global child sex trafficking
ring that used medieval ‘juju’ black magic to control its victims.
In 2007, he was deported back to Nigeria after police caught him trying
to use stolen credit cards. But he simply married a mysterious German
woman and returned to the country the following year with a five-year
visa. He used his home as a secret staging post for vulnerable teenage
orphans as they were smuggled from Africa to several European countries.
Detectives discovered evidence that at least 28 victims were smuggled in
and out of Britain by Osolase over a 14-month period, earning him up to
£1.5million.
In a chilling report by Daily Mail UK,
the way the young victims aged 14, 16 and 17 were raped, sexually
abused and subjected to voodoo-style rituals once in the clutches of the
trafficking ring was highlighted.
One was raped and all three endured juju rituals, including one
conducted by Osolase himself. One feared she was being taken to another
country to be used as a human sacrifice. A jury was told Osolase slashed
the chest of his youngest victim with a razor and rubbed black powder
into her bleeding wounds. She was ordered to take an oath of loyalty to
him and believed that if she broke it she would not have children, go
mad and die.
Osolase groomed her after the death of her parents by visiting her
village with presents and saying she would go to school in Europe. But
he abducted her and said she should prepare for life as a prostitute in
Italy where she would be raped by ‘white men who smoked drugs’.
The other two girls were terrorised by a local witchdoctor in Nigeria
shortly before being flown out of the country with promises of an
education and modelling work.
The 16-year-old told police she was taken to a ‘place of witchcraft’
where she was told to bathe in a ‘bloody gunk’ and wrap blood-soaked
cloth around her. As Osolase watched, a man wearing feathers on his head
cut hair from her armpits, cut some of her finger and toenails and took
blood from her hand with a syringe. She was told that the body parts
taken in the ritual would be used to find and kill her if she tried to
run away or failed to repay her captor.
The 17-year-old wept as she described how she was tricked into
travelling to Britain with the promise that she would go to school. She
was made to drink a potion laced with blood.
At the Canterbury Crown Court, Dr Hermoine Harris, an expert in Nigerian
religions, told the jury the juju rituals carried huge weight in
Nigerian society. “By taking someone’s blood you hold and control somebody’s very essence and their power.”
Osolase was convicted of five counts of human trafficking, rape and
sexual activity with a child and would be sentenced on Monday.
It is such a huge relief that these girls have been released from the
clutch of their captor. After their scary experience, we pray they find
healing and restoration and we wish them the very best in life.
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