THE NEW YORKER — NIGERIA / The Desperate Journey of a Trafficked Girl Every year, thousands of teen-agers from one city in Nigeria risk death and endure forced labor and sex work on the long route to Europe

More than eleven thou­sand Niger­ian women were res­cued in the Mediter­ranean last year, accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion, eighty per cent of whom had been traf­ficked for sex­u­al exploita­tion. “You now have girls who are thir­teen, four­teen, fif­teen,” an I.O.M. anti-traf­fick­ing agent told me. “The mar­ket is request­ing younger and younger.” Italy is mere­ly the entry point; from there, women are trad­ed and sold to madams all over Europe.