Most recently Street Talk has worked with Elizabeth from Nigeria. When she was five her parents were killed. She lived with a woman in her village until she was about fifteen (She is not sure of her own age as she has no documentation.) This woman sent her to Lagos to work as a servant for her daughter. In this household she was repeatedly raped by the daughter’s husband, resulting in Elizabeth becoming pregnant.
When it was discovered that she was pregnant she was flung out of the house with nowhere to go and took herself to sleep under the bridges in Lagos with all the other destitute people. She was gang raped and thought that her rapists would kill her. Apparently they told her they were going to kill her but a fight broke out amongst them and they left her alive, but she lost the baby.
She took herself for a project for homeless girls but here she fell pray to a trafficker. He told her he could get her to England where she could study, but what she arrived to was the sex industry. She managed to get away and was brought to the Medaille hostel where one of our counsellors was able to work with her within a day or two of her arrival.
On the day she saw the Street Talk counsellor she had learned that she was HIV positive and was terrified. She said that the counsellor was the first person she had ever spoken to about the things that she had lived through. She did very well and after six months started her new life beyond the hostel with enormous courage but her ability to do that, was helped by having a counsellor available just when she needed it.
She has a family of her own now and has always remained in touch to share her news.
