Nigerian women in Ghana exploited by smugglers, madams, 'priests'

September 21, 2019

Credits: Francesco Bellina/Al Jazeera

*Names marked with an asterisk* have been changed to protect interviewees' identities.

Kumasi, Ghana - Jennifer* has spent the last few weeks on the pavements of Vienna City, a hub in Kumasi, Ghana's second-largest city, which has a bustling nightlife.

She arrived in Ghana in May, having left a crowded hostel room in Lagos, Nigeria, hoping to secure work in sales or as a waitress and send her income to her mother in central Nigeria's Ondo State.

But after a one-day bus trip from Lagos to Accra, her dreams crumbled as she reached the green hills of Kumasi.

"Please, get me out of here, this life is devastating, they put me immediately on the street, forcing me to prostitute from 8pm till morning, every day,''

she said in a bar on Harper Road, where Rihanna's songs crackled through an old sound system as other Nigerian women outside dressed in revealing clothes waited for clients.