#maltreatment #childtrafficking
From an 8-year-old perspective
I woke up as usual in the morning, feeling the fatigue of the previous day heavy upon my shoulders. My legs ached so bad, even my joints did the same. But I have been like this all my life, so as usual, I jumped off the floor and took the bucket to fetch water before my mother would wake up from sleep.
I had woke up late already, the time was 5:26, I usually woke up 4:00 a.m. to make sure I was ready for my daily pepper hawking, if not, my mommy would beat me. It was even my birthday, but I did not remember, because all I had in my head was how to make sure I prevented Mommy’s morning yelling and beating.
There was a lot of crowd at the street water tap already, I knew mommy would be angry if I came back late, I even tried to plead with them, but it seemed everyone was hurrying to work or somewhere.
It got to my turn, notwithstanding, and I took my water home. As I got close, I heard, “this girl go die for my hand today,” and I froze in an expression of pure horror knowing it was my mommy’s voice, I knew it was going to be a tug of war that morning for me.
My mommy is a little fair skinned and plump, but I was dark and skinny, I’d never seen my daddy, and I dared not ask. As I approached with the bucket of water on my head, she glared at me and hissed, then pointed at me. “You! You think say you go fit frustrate me? Where time de?” She asked and continued with the little bag she held. I stood still with the water anticipating her heavy hand on my back.
And as I thought she would, she started towards me. “Shay you shop winch? Come here!” And that was it, she took me inside and beat the hell out of me. Well, I’m used to it, it happened, on average, at least once in every two days.
At the end of the morning, I was already at the market with my pepper, making sure I sold them all. I searched for customer sometimes. I get yelled at, but all I wanted was to sell them all, if not mommy would give me pepper to chew, and it wasn’t easy eating uncooked pepper.
Moreover, she promised that she’d soon enroll me into a school if I made more money.
I was at the market so late at night, I hadn’t sell off all my pepper and I didn’t want to eat pepper so I decided to stay and sell. although sometimes, mommy would argue that I’d spent my time in someone’s house and beat me for late coming, but it was endurable than eating raw pepper.
While I sat at the road side, a car came to a stop just in front of me and the woman beckoned on to me; I went close hoping that I’d sell them all, but she called me by my name, “Adeola!”
I didn’t know her, but I just responded, “yes, ma.”
She opened the car door and asked me to come inside, “come inside, my child.”
I became scared and I wanted to run away before she called after me to take her to my mother, that it was my mother she wanted to see, she wanted to buy plenty pepper from my mother, I knew my mother would be happy that I brought such market, so I entered the car.
About some time into the road, I heard her making some calls, saying “I’ve found her.” She was crying and subbing as we drove home to my mother.
In a while after we’d arrived and she was discussing pepper business with my mother, some police men came to arrest my mother. And they kept on saying child trafficking.
Long after they’d gone, the woman broke to my hearing a story that stunned me but also made me feel like the chains hand been taken off my neck.
I was born in a hospital where child trafficking was prominent. It was a center that was recognised by a lot of people. After my mother gave birth to me, I was supposed to be sold to a rich woman who had an accident on her on her way to the hospital, this was what twisted my already twisted fate. I became a burden that instant and I was given to the woman I assumed was my mother before this day.
In the wonderful beginning I had with my real mother, she cried bitterly almost all the time, not because I suffered while I was not with her, but because the torture was inculcated inside of me, I acted it even while I was free.
I always forgot to sleep on my bed because I was used to the floor, I began to cry even when I woke up at five, thinking I’d be beaten. The day I mistakenly broke a plate, I ran outside and started wailing expecting to be beaten. I was sleeping on the chair and I had rolled down unknowingly to me, when I opened my eyes, I apologized for falling down.
And my new mommy did everything in her power to take me off the bondage.
The end
The lessons are vivid enough, we hope you found them.
