•Domestic staff
Oppressed by their sponsors and inflicted with unending pain, these Nigerian women narrate heartrending stories of how they were deceived into travelling to Egypt in search of a promised breakthrough, only to face exploitation, abuse, and despair where they had expected a ray of sunshine and opportunity, reports Saturday PUNCH.
On the evening of Wednesday, November 6, 2024, Motunrayo Joana, a Lagos-based woman, packed her bags in the two-bedroom apartment she shared with her husband and daughter in Ikotun. She was preparing to leave Nigeria for Egypt, hoping to work as a domestic help.
The decision, she said, was born of necessity. With household finances stretched and her husband no longer providing adequate support despite holding a steady job, Joana felt compelled to seek opportunities abroad.
“My husband had stopped taking care of me, even though he has a good job,” she told our correspondent. “He works in a pharmaceutical company but pays little attention to our home. I had no option but to try my luck elsewhere.”
That night, the apprehensive mother of one boarded a bus to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. The following day, Thursday, November 7, she took a 1:25 pm Ethiopian Airlines flight to Cairo, Egypt, via Addis Ababa, travelling alongside other women sponsored by their respective ‘agents’.
At about 1:20 am on Friday, November 8, as the aircraft touched down in Cairo, Joana believed she had finally reached her personal El Dorado.
Weeks before the journey, friends in Nigeria had introduced her to Halimat, a cloth seller based in Cairo who also acted as a ‘sponsor’ or ‘agent’, facilitating the migration of young Nigerian women for domestic work in Egypt.
It was learnt that Halimat and her associates regularly bring girls from Nigeria, ostensibly to work as nannies for Egyptian families. The sponsors arrange visas, pay for flights and provide accommodation on arrival until the girls are placed with employers.
Once employed, the women typically live almost full-time with their Egyptian families, with only a few days off each month. Even during these breaks, many choose to remain with their employers, as returning to sponsor-arranged accommodation is often unsafe or uncomfortable.
On arrival, the women usually stay with their sponsors or in lodgings arranged by them until jobs are secured. Most are made to sign agreements committing them to work for at least 20 months, during which their full salaries are paid to the sponsors, who remit only a fraction to the workers.
“When I was still in Nigeria, Halimat told me I would earn 500 Egyptian pounds monthly,” Joana said.
“I did not understand its value until I arrived. I signed an agreement to work for 20 months.
“My husband was even required to swear an affidavit as my guarantor. Egyptian families pay salaries into accounts provided by the agents.
“Halimat sourced account numbers from supermarkets or Nigerians running exchange businesses and sent them to us. We then submitted these to our madames. We cannot open bank accounts ourselves because we are not citizens and do not have residence permits.
“Salaries are paid every 26 days, and the amount varies between 7,000 and 15,000 Egyptian pounds. Some people earn in dollars, but to be paid in dollars, you need a residence permit or a UN certificate.”
She added that the lowest daily wage was about 300 Egyptian pounds and that she also sourced work through other agents.
“Some agents are Nigerians, others Egyptians. Nigerian agents earn commissions from their Egyptian counterparts. Initially, Halimat told me I would remit between 5,000 and 8,000 Egyptian pounds monthly, but after I arrived, she fixed it at 8,000 pounds,” she said.
A rough journey begins
Unknown to Joana, her ordeal had only just begun. She said she endured repeated beatings from her sponsor and constant humiliation.
“I arrived in November 2024 to work as a nanny, but I had no idea of the hell I was about to endure. Seven days after my arrival, we went to another agent’s office to secure a job. I used Aboniki balm because of the extreme cold, but my sponsor suddenly became furious because she disliked the smell.
“She insulted me throughout the day, and when we returned home, she began hitting me. When I tried to defend myself verbally, it only made her angrier,” she recounted.
She said there were four people in the house at the time: the sponsor, herself, another nanny and a man who had also come to work.
Contrary to the promises made in Nigeria, jobs were difficult to secure. Joana did not find work until a month after her arrival, and even then, the pay was low and insufficient to meet the obligations imposed by her sponsor.
“My sponsor had four girls working for her, but jobs were never easy to get. By the end of January 2025, I paid her 6,400 Egyptian pounds (about N193,000), but I still owed 4,000 pounds (N120,000).
“Another agent, Yusuf, helped me get a job in New Cairo, but he charged a middleman fee of 800 Egyptian pounds (N24,000),” she said.
The cycle of debt continued. In February 2025, she remained in deficit despite paying 5,100 pounds. By April, a job in Alexandria enabled her to pay 7,500 pounds, and in May, she finally met the full 8,000-pound monthly remittance agreed in Nigeria.
“Things improved in May when I got a job with Madame Julie, who even paid for my Uber,” Joana said.
By June, she had moved to a new employer, earning a modest income through cleaning and babysitting, and could remit only 7,000 Egyptian pounds.
Begging for renegotiation
Realising that life in Egypt was far from what she had been promised, Joana approached Halimat to renegotiate the terms of their agreement.
Joana said that Halimat became angry and seized her passport when she discovered that she (Joana) was sending her 500-pound allowance to her husband’s sister in Nigeria, who was taking care of her daughter.
“We had a serious disagreement, and the stress became unbearable. I had to involve an intermediary, a man known as Alhaji, to help settle the issue.
“He negotiated with her to reduce my obligation from 8,000 to 7,000 Egyptian pounds monthly and shorten the contract from 20 to 19 months because I wanted to return to Nigeria,” she said.
“I begged my family to help me raise the money. In December 2025, I paid her N2.5m. According to the agreement, I owe her nothing more. Yet, she has refused to return my passport, which she seized on my arrival.”
Joana provided evidence of funds paid into Halimat’s Nigerian bank account during the renegotiation of the agreement, highlighting the financial transactions involved in the trafficking arrangement.
Ugly side of a sponsor
Posing as a desperate job seeker, our reporter contacted Halimat, pretending to be Femi, a resident of Ogijo, Ikorodu in Lagos.
She angrily told him to look for sponsors on TikTok, claiming there were many there. Still upset, Halimat recounted how one of her sponsored girls owed her 11,500 Egyptian pounds and said she was not ready to take on another arrangement.
However, after persistent pleading, she reluctantly agreed to act as a sponsor and promised to sign any agreement presented to her. She later asked whether the reporter had been referred through one of her trusted sources.
Halimat revealed that she, too, had been trafficked to Egypt as a young girl and only became a sponsor after “paying her dues.”
In a twist, her demeanour changed as she repeatedly asked how the reporter obtained her contact, threatening to report him to the police. Despite several minutes of pleading, she refused to facilitate a trip to Egypt, insisting she was no longer willing to be involved in such arrangements.
Like Joana, like Suliat
Thirty-year-old Suliat (not her real name) was a single mother and waitress in Ikorodu, Lagos, when she heard about an opportunity to travel to Egypt for better income.
Eager to support herself and her child, she arranged for someone to swear an affidavit on her behalf and signed the agreement papers before boarding a flight to Cairo.
Unlike Joana, Suliat never met her sponsor in person; all interactions were conducted through an intermediary. She spent nothing on the trip and was promised a “good deal” to work for 19 months.
“I didn’t even know my sponsor,” she recalled.
“I arrived at the home of a friend of my sponsor, not realising he wasn’t the person I’d been told about. He took me in as if he were my sponsor.”
She was immediately forced into physically demanding work.
“In Nigeria, they told me I would be a nanny, but that wasn’t true. I ended up washing cars, cleaning compounds, and scrubbing gates. The work was so exhausting that I fell sick and once fainted on the job. He accused me of being pregnant, insulted me, and beat me until my face was bruised. I couldn’t go to the hospital. If anyone falls sick, treatment is provided, but the cost is deducted from the 500 Egyptian pounds (about N15,000) we are paid. My phone had been confiscated, so I couldn’t contact my family,” she explained.
When she demanded to meet her real sponsor, the man finally took her to a woman known as the Iron Lady.
“There were so many girls living there, I couldn’t even count them. She was worse than the man, verbally abusive, insulting our parents, and often beating us. The food she gave us was terrible,” Suliat said, her voice heavy with pain.
The young woman longed to return to Nigeria.
“I signed a one-year, seven-month contract and arrived in October 2025. I can’t wait to pay their money, book my flight, and go home,” she told our reporter.
‘They lied to me’
“They promised me 1,000 Egyptian pounds (about N30,000) monthly before I left Nigeria, but when I arrived, they said I would only receive half of that,” Suliat said.
She added that Nigerian girls are often deceived into thinking they will work as nannies, only to end up doing menial labour like washing cars or cleaning kitchens.
She also recounted the plight of a pregnant colleague. “One girl arrived pregnant without knowing. She was treated terribly. Even after giving birth, she wasn’t allowed to breastfeed. They fed her baby pap instead.”
Suliat is now relieved to have escaped Iron Lady’s household and has recently secured a new job in a different location over the Christmas period.
Sold to various sponsors
Another victim, Faith (not her real name), described being sold from one sponsor to another following severe beatings.
“After arriving, my sponsor sold me to another sponsor. I am still paying the first sponsor because she brought me here, but I am more loyal to my new sponsor, who provides housing and food. My former sponsor used to beat me, and I fought back. One night, I returned from work exhausted and hungry. She accused me of being careless, and when I tried to speak, she started beating me.
“I reported her to my new sponsor, whom we call Jagaban. During the fight, I was beaten so badly that my entire body was covered in blood, and I sustained a cut on my head. It was another sponsor, Kunle, who helped negotiate my transfer to Jagaban,” Faith explained.
Trafficked men
Faith noted that although most trafficked individuals are women, men are also victims. She explained that sponsors preferred women because male domestic workers were less profitable.
“We had Nigerian men working with us, too, but sponsors did not like them because they earned less. While women could make up to 8,000 Egyptian pounds, the highest a man could earn was 5,000 pounds. They worked in supermarkets for our madames and handled the toughest errands. The men were usually calm and did not mind insults from sponsors. They simply got on with the work,” she said.
Alarming migration statistics
North Africa has become a critical hub for international migration, functioning as a region of origin, transit, and increasingly, a destination, according to the policy paper Migrant Women in the North of Africa: Entrepreneurship as an Opportunity for Socio-Economic Inclusion by Emilie Vidal and Tobias Metzner. The region hosts an estimated 3.2 million migrants, largely from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, with women accounting for 43.6 per cent of this population.
In Morocco, for instance, women made up 48.5 per cent of migrants in 2020. During regularisation exercises in 2014 and 2016/2017, about 45,000 migrants were documented, 48 per cent of them women. In Tunisia, official 2014 figures recorded 14,358 migrants, including 6,397 women, although these numbers are believed to underestimate the actual population.
By 2021, 7,697 refugees and asylum seekers were registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tunisia, of whom 3,073 were women.
While many Sub-Saharan nationals can enter Tunisia on short-term tourist visas, securing residence permits and remaining legally is considerably more difficult. In Egypt, estimates indicate that migrant populations include about 254,385 women and 289,552 men. According to the report Social Profile and Human Rights of Domestic Workers in Cairo, Nigerians accounted for roughly 11 per cent of a sample of 781 domestic workers, translating to 82 Nigerian women.
‘We’ve been sensitising Nigerians’
Speaking with our correspondent, Abdulrahman Balogun, Head of Media at the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, said such cases have been ongoing for years, noting that the commission has consistently warned Nigerians against risky journeys abroad.
“This is not new; it has been happening for a long time. It is not only Egypt, similar issues occur in other countries. We have been sensitising Nigerians to avoid becoming victims, but many only reach out when they run into trouble, despite repeated warnings,” Balogun said.
He added that many Nigerians travel abroad without informing anyone, including the embassies, and only seek help when situations get out of control.
“They do not notify anyone when travelling; some even do it secretly. It is only when trouble arises that they speak up,” he said.
NAPTIP steps up
Vincent Adekoye, Press Officer of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, told our correspondent that the agency is fully aware of the activities of human traffickers and is working to bring them to justice.
“NAPTIP is aware of individuals who pose as helpers, deceive victims, and traffic them. We have been investigating these networks and have arrested several perpetrators. Towards the end of 2025, one of the key figures in a trafficking ring was apprehended abroad, brought back to Nigeria, tried, and convicted.
“We continue to collaborate with the Nigeria Immigration Service and other sister agencies to protect Nigerians from trafficking and exploitation,” he said.
Adekoye revealed that NAPTIP rescued 30 Nigerian women being trafficked to the Middle East in a single operation in 2025 and prosecuted over 90 traffickers.
“We are intensifying awareness campaigns to reduce the vulnerability of potential victims. Trafficking to the Middle East remains a serious problem. Last year, our Director-General led a team to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, where over 30 victims were intercepted while being trafficked to countries such as Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. In 2025 alone, we secured convictions against 96 human traffickers. We continue to work closely with all willing partners,” he added.
Looking ahead, Adekoye said the agency would intensify its operations in 2026.
“This year will be very challenging for traffickers. We are reviewing our mechanisms, strengthening strategies, and intensifying operations. Our focus remains on rescuing victims, arresting perpetrators, and ensuring traffickers are brought to justice,” he said.
Both parties are liable
A legal practitioner, Tommy-Ojoge Daniel, weighed in on the legal implications, noting that under Nigerian law, both traffickers and trafficked adults can be held accountable in certain circumstances.
“As long as the women involved are adults and willingly entered into agreements to engage in illegal activities, they are legally culpable. Both parties are guilty where consent exists. The only exceptions are cases involving coercion or minors. Otherwise, where there is mutual agreement, both parties are in violation of the law,” he explained.
