Tobore Ovuorie
Exposing the sex traffickers by Anita Bhadani
For four months, Nigerian investigative journalist Tobore Ovuorie posed as a sex worker determined to shine a light on the plight of women trafficked for sex, only to become trapped by the very people she sought to expose. Her report, published in 2014, revealed the full horror of her experience. She had uncovered a network of violence, murder and organ harvesting.
After publication, she entered the Elisabeth Selbert Initiative protection programme in Germany, where she busied herself replicating the work she had been doing at home. Now, still haunted by the experience, she is committed to reporting on overlooked aspects of migration and is currently working on a multimedia journalistic project and a documentary film on the subject.
It was ten years ago, in 2013, as the senior investigative reporter and health editor for the Premium Times, that Ovuorie was contacted by a colleague in the Netherlands who initially wanted her to interview women about to be trafficked. Ovuorie asked, ‘Why not embed me in the process?’ She explained that she had lost someone close to her through trafficking and that many women had no idea how easily smuggling turned into trafficking. ‘Let’s get to the truth,’ she said. ‘Let’s find out what’s really going on.’
During her ordeal, Ovuorie suffered assault, was forced to witness a brutal murder, and came dangerously close to meeting the same fate. The experience has taken a terrible toll on her, and she draws comfort, she says, from knowing her work has captured international attention and will likely change the way trafficking from West Africa to the wider world is understood.
‘I recall before it was published, some Western media houses that had been contacted with the story would say, “Oh no, we aren’t going to publish this, to push this ugly narrative about Africa. This is too horrific”. After it was published, reality dawned on them that this is exactly the unfortunate situation of things. Some of them were now turning around and asking to publish the investigation. It came as a rude shock, but that was just the cold truth of reality on the ground.’
What keeps her going? She says her life-long commitment to journalism, recalling there was never any doubt, even at a very young age, of the path she would follow or the kind of journalism she would ultimately do. ‘I made up my mind, it wasn’t going to be me looking nice before a camera, but me digging for the truth and holding people accountable,’ she says. Ovuroie, 42, was particularly driven by the injustice she saw around her, especially against women and girls. ‘They try to silence us. As a girl, I would ask questions, and the adults around me would not give me answers. Today, people still do not give me answers. Some will call me arrogant because back where I come from, you should not ask questions – worse still, you are a woman.’
Rather than allowing these experiences to silence her, they fuel her anger and her hope for a better world. ‘I told them, whatever they can do, I will do – and I will do it better,’ she says forcefully. It is clear from the way she speaks that her journalism -which has spanned two decades – is both a profession and a vocation. ‘I know I’m not going to conform. I know I’m not going to be accepted because I will be telling the truth. I was tired of people being silenced around me.’
While going undercover to investigate human trafficking is inherently dangerous, operating as a journalist in Nigeria when reporting contentious issues comes with its own risks. According to Reporters Without Borders, stories that involve politics and conflict in the country are ‘very problematic’, and both media outlets and individual journalists have been targets of attack. Female investigative journalists face additional challenges on top of this, says Sadibou Marong, the director of Reporters Without Borders West African Bureau. ‘The safety and security of women journalists should start at the newsrooms, but there are many newsrooms which are not safe places for women journalists because of the threats they face.”
Despite this, Nigeria has a rich journalistic scene – one of the most vibrant in Africa – boasting over 100 independent newspapers and has seen ‘an emergence of extremely important female investigative journalists’, says Marong, a movement of which Ovuorie is a part. ‘People like Tobore might be considered role models to younger journalists. She can be at the forefront of encouraging a whole new generation of younger journalists, especially women journalists,’ he says.
In 2021 Ovuorie received the prestigious DW Freedom of Speech Award for her ongoing work into human trafficking. She is keen that her journey is seen as inspirational and does not want to valorise the risks she has taken. “No story is worth your life. You have to take care of you,” she says. ‘My being alive is actually a miracle. I ignored my intuition, the red flags and everything. At that time, that voice was no longer silent: it was shouting, it was screaming, and I was ignoring it. Don’t ignore it.’ For those willing to commit to the work and put ego aside, she continues, investigative journalism can be a rewarding journey. ‘It’s not a bad path – it’s a beautiful path to travel on if your intentions are pure. If your intention is to seek truth and to bring a light in dark places.”