Her name is Sonia Osazee, 41 years old, the Nigerian woman to whom the Court of Assizes of Reggio Calabria – president Natina Pratticò – inflicted 20 years of imprisonment for exploitation of prostitution, human trafficking, sexual violence and reduction to a state of slavery of one of her compatriots.
With her, the Court of Assizes also sentenced her accomplice Sunday Ediorans, 31, also Nigerian, to nine years in prison. The trial was the result of an investigation by the Reggio Calabria Flying Squad in 2016, following a complaint from a young Nigerian woman who had been subjected to the “juju rite” (a religious rite of coercion that initiates Nigerian migrant women into so-called “debt slavery” to pay for the journey to Europe) who, having arrived in Italy on a boat, had been forced to prostitute herself in Castel Volturno to repay the debt contracted in Nigeria.
According to the trial documents, Sonia Osazee “recruited, introduced into the territory of the State and hosted the injured party over whom she exercised powers corresponding to the right of ownership, forcing them to perform sexual services, with the threat of killing their family of origin and making them return to Nigeria”.
After landing in Reggio Calabria, the victim had understood that she had been deceived, trying several times to escape from the Osazee-Ediorans couple and threatening to report everything to the police. Sonia Osazee, according to the investigation, feeling in danger, transferred the girl to Karlsruhe, Germany, under the escort of her brother, entrusting her to a Nigerian ‘madamè to force her to prostitute herself again. The State Police, with its intervention, managed to break the chains of slavery of the young Nigerian, obtaining the convictions of her tormentors.
