The Lebanese police have arrested the suspected trafficker of a 23-year-old Nigerian teacher, Omolola Ajayi, who was held hostage in Lebanon by her employer, Youssef Maurwan.
It was gathered that Maurwan had been taken into custody and would be prosecuted for human trafficking and enslavement by the Lebanese authorities.
A source in the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission told Said that Maurwan would be made to pay for Ajayi’s return ticket as well as return her passport which he had seized.
It was learnt that the single mother, who was rescued on Monday, is still with the Nigerian Ambassador to Lebanon, Goni Bura, in Beirut.
“Maurwan is in the custody of the Lebanese police and is being investigated. He has been ordered to return Ajayi’s passport which he seized upon her arrival in Lebanon. He will also be made to provide her return ticket to Nigeria. No date has been fixed for her return.” The NIDCOM official stated.
But spokesman for the commission, Abdul-Rahman Balogun, said he could not confirm the latest developments.
Miss Ajayi had narrated her ordeal in a viral video on social media last week.
She said a family friend linked her up with an agent who took her to Lebanon with a promise to get her a teaching job there, but instead of being offered a teaching job, her passport was seized while her employers allegedly attempted to rape her.
In the video, she stated; “If I am sick, they won’t take me to hospital. They will only give me drugs. Half of the people we came here together have died. I don’t want to die here. I need help to return home.
“The person I live with wants to rape me but I have been resisting him. He collected my phone and said he would not give me the phone until I accept to have sex with him. It is when he sleeps or goes out that I manage to take calls where he keeps the phone.”
Ajayi added that the situation became worse when she called her agent to get her out of captivity but the man told her he had paid for her life.