A 16 year-old girl, Mounriatou, is just one of the many who are taken from them homes in Togo and offered a “better life” in the oil-rich state of Gabon.
However, many of them don’t even manage to reach Gabon because they either get sick or died from numerous rapes they are subjected to on their way to the promise land.

Mounriatou was taken a way from her home by a woman called Adama who came to the village to recruit new women. On their way to Gabon, these women had to earn money for their trips by working as house cleaners for miserable amounts of money, which are taken away from them anyway.
When there were enough women, they were gathered and told that they would be headed to Gabon real soon. Until then, they were situated in a village in the southwest of Nigeria where they had to work to pay for their trips with street traders and where they were raped nightly by the canoe men.
Mounriatou got pregnant from these numerous rapes that went on for more than six months and was infected with HIV virus. When it was time to go to Gabon, she was useless with her stomach and the baby, so she was left with 18$ in her pockets and left on her own. Many of other people who were waiting to be transferred to Gabon got sick and were thrown into the sea from the boats by the canoe men.

Mounriatou was taken to the Togo Embassy and left with the Catholic sisters until she gave birth and then she was sent back to her village where both her and her child died of aids nine months after.

This is a story of just one girl but thousands of children are taken away from their homes each year and subjected to enforced labour and into prostitution. Most of them get infected by HIV and die because of the inadequate health infrastructure and poverty in these African countries.