Woman Who Testified Against Her Human Traffickers Risks Deportation

By Ray Weaver on June 26, 2013—
Bødskov: If a compelling reason can be shown, a temporary stay can be granted (Photo: Scanpix)

“When 20-year-old Omo Amenahakawon first came to Denmark, she said she thought she would be working as an au pair. The truth turned out to be far different.

Amenahakawon was forced to work as a prostitute in brothels in Jutland and hand the money she made over to the human traffickers who brought her here.

Eventually she found the courage to go to the police and report her abusers. Her co-operation resulted in the capture, trial and incarceration of her traffickers.

During the trial, Amenahakawon received death threats from those behind the human trafficking network in Nigeria.

Despite her willingness to come forward and her co-operation, Amenahakawon has been refused asylum in Denmark and the authorities want to send her and her one-year old son back to Nigeria. By force, if necessary.

Fearing for her life, Amenahakawon has now gone into hiding.

“Our fear is that she will be killed as soon as she gets back to Nigeria, so we are protecting her,” Mogens Petersen, the founder of Christian’s Friends safehouse, told DR News.

Amenahakawon cannot understand why the government is turning its back on her.

“I co-operated with the police,” she said. “I testified against my traffickers and they were given prison sentences.”

Amenahakawon said the police at the time advised her to seek asylum in order to protect herself.

Her lawyer, Jens Rye-Andersen, was stunned by the decision to deport his client.”

For the full story, please click here.


2 thoughts on “Woman Who Testified Against Her Human Traffickers Risks Deportation

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s