The women are usually purchased at a cost of less than 10 US dollar from very poor and illiterate parents with promises of a better life for the girls and remittances to their parents. Since neither the illiterate parents nor the ignorant and naïve girls know the hidden agenda of the Mafia, the deal is usually concluded with celebration with friends and family.

Voodoo rituals and initiation

After the celebration, the girls are immediately sent to the shrines of the fetish priests where they undergo a gruesome two to three months of "spiritual purification and initiation".

(a) This initiation ritual is supposed to drive away all "bad luck" spirits that may cause them problems on their way to Europe eg. police arrest and deportation.

(b) The initiation rituals are also meant to guarantee that they will have a constant supply of clients. At the end of the initiation, the young teenage girls are made to swear to the gods that once in Europe, they will be faithful to work hard and pay their slave masters the agreed sum of money usually US$60,000.00 - $80,000.00.

(c) They must also vow never to run away and never to mention their real names, their country of origin or the names of their slave masters to anybody, especially to the police. If they do, the gods will kill them and their parents. Coming from a strong superstitious background, the girls are so fear-bound that they adhere strictly to their vows in order not to incur the wrath of the gods.

(d) As part of the initiation, hairs from their private parts, blood, saliva, underwears and tears from the eyes are given to the fetish priests who conjures his powers on them to ensure that the girls keep strictly to their vows.

There are several means by which these gangs bring in the girls but their favorite route is by air. Usually, they secure genuine visas for the girls through their contacts in the various Western Embassies. But mostly, they collect passports of ladies who have recently entered Western Europe with valid visas which are not yet expired, and they use these passports to bring in their girls. Another favourite method is to collect look-alike passports from ladies who have European passports and they use these look-alike passports to bring in their victims. In some few cases, they get help from contact persons among the immigration officials on duty on specific days. In Europe Once in Europe, the young ladies are usually resold by their original owners to new "madams" or "masters" for about US$20,000.00 - US$30,000.00. First day at work After some new rituals, vows and initiations, the new owners will then drug these girls and take them to the redlights or vantage points in the street to begin their new trade as prostitutes. The cultural shock and the effects of the drugs on these young girls cannot be overemphasized.

Medical and psycho-social effects

Often these young ladies are subjected to such untold torture and human suffering by their heartless owners resulting in many cases, to permanent mental brake down, maiming, disfiguring scars, nightmares and long term psychological effect and loss of self-esteem and their human dignity.

The worst nightmare for these sex slave girls is when they become pregnant. Their "madams" and "masters" are not in any mode to countenance anything that will affect their business. The pregnancies must therefore be aborted immediately. And since these girls have no legal status or health insurance, the abortion methods usually used by the owners had often resulted in permanent damage to their reproductive organs and in some cases even death.