Woman, husband arrested for using underage girls for prostitution

An operator of a brothel in Oba, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Mrs Ekpereamaka Okonkwo, has been arrested alongside her husband for employing underage girls as prostitutes.

Okonkwo, a nursing mother, recently had her brothel shut down by youths of the Oba community, where about nine underage girls serving as prostitutes were rescued.

She later went into hiding when the Anambra State Government, through the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo, led a team of security agents to arrest her.

Obinabo revealed yesterday that Okonkwo and her husband were arrested on Tuesday.

The commissioner said: “When she heard we were looking for her, she reached out to us through her husband, asking that she wanted to give me some money to water the ground.

“I called the governor and told him of the development. I also called the police, and they urged me to play along with them. They later asked me to come to Asaba, where the woman’s husband offered me N300,000 as part payment.

“I insisted that the woman also come, and she was later brought to a hotel to meet me. She promised that she would be making monthly returns to me. Later, security men came out and arrested her.”

Obinabo said Mrs Ekpereamaka Okonkwo would be charged in court and prosecuted for using teenage girls for prostitution.

She added that Okonkwo, who hails from Otolo Nnewi, was previously operating in Nnewi, where he was known as “Madam Padded.”

She operated facilities where underage girls were forced into sex slavery in Nnewi and later relocated to Oba after three of her girls died in the facility in a fire incident.

In Oba, she took up the name “Ukwu Venza,” where nine girls, including three girls aged 13 years, were found to be working as prostitutes.