How we support Nigerian girls, others  trafficked to Italy for prostitution- Francesca De Masi, Be Free  President

Fracesca De Masi is the President of Be Free Cooperative Against Trafficking Violence and Discrimination, an association of  women  taking care of women-victim of trafficking and violence. The  organization was established in Roma in 2007.

According to her, Be Free is part of the national anti-trafficking system.  “In Italy , we have a system which can accept women or men victim of exploitation- sexual exploitation and labor exploitation too,”she said, adding that there are in Italy, 1,500 places for victim of trafficking. 1,500 shelters founded by the government.

“We manage shelter with 6 places available for women who are escaping from sexual exploitation.”

In the course of doing her work, Fracesca has met and supported many Nigerian girls fleeing from violations occasioned by being used for sexual exploitation. Her love and support for Nigerian girls saw her visiting the country and even uses words  spoken by the different tribes in her conversation. “In my journey in Nigeria, I stayed 40 days, more than one month.  I spent 20 days in Lagos with these religious sisters and 20 days in Benin City. It was around the time the Oba of Benin placed a curse on human traffickers.

“And it was very beautiful, because the Nigerian girls in Italy that  I supported, they knew that I was in Nigeria that period.  And they sent me some message telling me, but is it true Oba spoke about us.  And it was very beautiful, because for the first time, the victims had someone speaking about them.

What the Oba did was okay but not enough to stop the traffickers. Human traffickers are criminals. They break human laws, and break even God’s laws too.

She noted that many trafficked girls that  her organisation came across and supported suffered from mental health problems and other health challenges.

“They have symptoms of  depression as part of the consequences of exploitation they have experienced. They have difficulty sleeping and also suffer from even  physical problems. Some come up with HIV. In our shelter, we are, we support them in every kind of procedure. We  accompany them to the hospital, and make them have some healthcare checks.”

 Fracesca decried Nigerian girls’ attitude to seeing psychologist for examination.

 “Nigerian girls think that if they go to the psychologist,  it means that they are crazy.  But it’s not so. So please, please, if you can write this, let them know that going to a psychologist is not aboutbeing  crazy. Going to the psychologist means that you take care about your mental wellness, that it’s very hard to buy.  With all the violence these girls passed through during their journey, the exploitation, the rape,   they psychologist support.  it just helps them to be okay and  happy in life.I know that there are just 200 psychiatrists in all over Nigeria of  200 million people.  I know a lot of things.”

In spite of their reluctance to go for psychological checks, Francesca described  Nigerian girls as fighters and strong willed people “because they are heroic in even finding some way to escape from their madam.

“I have a lot of stories of life about the girls I met in these years.  They are able to escape from their madam. And if they have some support, like our support, they can reach their freedom.

 “But on the other side, this rebellion is very hard, because obviously they have a lot of fear and I agree with them.The fear is about the family in Nigeria, because the traffickers know where the families are.  And so they have fears that the traffickers, if they escape from prostitution, the traffickers can assault the family.”

She noted that the number of Nigerians being trafficked to Italy through irregular pathways has drastically reduced in recent time. “The trafficking changed a little bit in this area because until 2021, we had most of girls coming from Nigeria. Now the data is  a little bit different.  There are even other nationalities like Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali etc .

“On the contrary, in the past, even in the national system, almost 80% of the people identified by the anti-trafficking system were Nigerians. So we have a lot of experience with Nigerian girls.  For example, in 2016, in those years, Nigeria was one of the first people arriving by boat.  Today, the data is different because we were thinking and asking, where are the Nigerian girls now? Because they don’t arrive anymore by boat to Italy.I think that they remain blocked, for example, in Libya or in other places.”

Fracesca added that Nigerian girls now are less than the pastors in Italy but “they remain very vulnerable following  their situation.  Because even if they are able to escape from the exploitation, they don’t find a very good environment. Italy, especially with the new government, is not welcoming the migrants. It’s a little bit difficult to build with the migrant people a stable project of life.  They remain in precarious situation. So, for them, it’s very difficult to have a good life.  We try our best, okay, because in Italy there are law protecting people escaping from exploitation and trafficking.

“And this law can help them, first of all, to get a residence permit because they are victim of a big crime. Trafficking in my opinion, is the most serious  violation of human rights in the world, because in trafficking, there are different types of  violence. There is rape inside trafficking, there is  prostitution, there is even, for example, sometimes domestic slavery. In my opinion, one of the most dreadful crimes is trafficking.  I cannot tell you, in a sense, the volume of money around this phenomenon, because we have just the world data and not the Italian data.It’s very hard to, first of all, understand how many people are involved in trafficking as victim and how much money the traffickers earn.  

“The data of the national anti-trafficking system is lesser than the reality.  This data is just the people whom we are able to identify as victims. For example, in 2025, the national anti-trafficking system identified 3,000 people as victims of trafficking. Just in 2025.  But we think that there are more and more, because it’s very difficult to find them, especially after COVID. Before COVID, there were a lot of girls on the road and they were more visible. But after COVID, the exploitation moved in closed places something like connection houses.And this kind of places is very hard to identify.”