23 Years Old Vivienne Who Left Nigeria Hoping To Reach Spain But Ended Up As Sahara Sex Worker Tells Her Story

23 years old Vivienne, who declined to give her surname narrated how she left home to travel Europe by land but landed as a Sahara sex worker.  Narrating her story on BBC, she left home last month, she took a bus ride of about 240km (150 miles) from Kano, the main city in northern Nigeria, to Zinder, Niger's second city, and from there another bus to Agadez, a town about 370km away.

 "I thought I would find a job here," she says. "I came here because of the conditions I found myself in Nigeria. I had just finished my secondary school but my Dad doesn't have money for me to study. I just want to continue north, make money and make my family proud."

She arrived in Agadez with big dreams. Instead, desperate to reach Europe, she is now selling herself to men.
"I've searched. There is no job," she laments, rolling her mobile phone between her hands. I have met her in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Agadez.

 She shares two dusty rooms with 10 other Nigerian young girls. One of the rooms does not have a door. Nor does the other, but there is a curtain hanging, at least.
  The place is littered with open condom packets, used ones were thrown onto a pile of trash that the women burn every now and then just a couple of metres away from their doorstep.

"I thought I could do the cleaning at somebody's house and that they would pay me. But there are no jobs here," Vivienne says. "Then I met these Nigerian friends and they told me that this was how they coped here. So, I started to work for men." "I am not happy with the job I am doing, but it's the only way I can survive." The old part of town is a maze of narrow streets and dusty alleyways

All houses have been built with mud-bricks, in a square or rectangular-like shape and they look as though they are just coming out of the earth. Agadez is an obvious market place for communities surrounded by nothing else but the desert. But it is a place of secrecy, the gateway to the Sahara and the home to all kinds of smugglers.
For African migrants, their dream - the promise of a better life - starts here. Money is what they hope to find in Europe, but it is what they need now

As her foot brushes the remains of a red condom packet covered in dust, she explains she cannot return home now because her family would not allow her back if they came to know what she was doing in Agadez.
 I ask her where in Europe would she like to go. "I want to go to Spain because my friend told me it was nice," she answers. "I want to study to be a nurse. That's my dream."
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