The Anambra State Government has arrested an operator of a brothel in Oba, Idemili North Local Government Area of the state, Mrs Ekpereamaka Okonkwo, for allegedly employing underage girls as prostitutes.
The suspect, a nursing mother, was arrested alongside her husband on Tuesday.
NIGERIACRIME gathered that the youth of the community, recently shut down the suspect’s brothel and also rescued nine underage girls serving as prostitutes there.
The state, through the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo, led a team of security agents to arrest her, which forced her into hiding.
She later went into hiding when the Anambra State Government, through the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo, led a team of security agents to arrest her.
The commissioner, while addressing journalists, said, “When she heard we were looking for her, she reached out to us through her husband, asking that she wanted to give me some money to water the ground.
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“I called the governor and told him of the development. I also called the police, and they urged me to play along with them. They later asked me to come to Asaba, where the woman’s husband offered me N300,000 as part payment.
“I insisted that the woman also come, and she was later brought to a hotel to meet me. She promised that she would be making monthly returns to me. Later, security men came out and arrested her.”
The suspect would be charged to court and prosecuted for the offense, the commissioner told newsmen, adding that Okonkwo, who hails from Otolo Nnewi, was previously operating in Nnewi, where she was known as “Madam Padded.”
She operated facilities where underage girls were forced into sex slavery in Nnewi and later relocated to Oba after three of her girls died in the facility in a fire incident.
In Oba, she took up the name “Ukwu Venza,” where nine girls, including three girls aged 13 years, were found to be working as prostitutes.