Eleven members of a mainly Nigerian human trafficking gang are standing trial in the Dutch town of Zwolle.  They have been accused of luring scores of young Nigerian women to Europe and forcing them to work as prostitutes.
 

"Josephine feels threatened, she reacted with extreme anxiety when shown a picture of the man during the police interrogation," the judge says. Josephine does not want to take the witness stand while the defendant is present. "It is the right of the accused to follow their trial in all its facets," retorts the defence lawyer, who claims there is no "concrete" evidence of her fear which he says is too general and not verifiable. But no less real, I think.

 
And so on the third day of this mega trial, it was not clear at all whether Josephine would agree to testify against Solomon O and Gilbert E, the two "big fish" in a gang accused of smuggling and forcing dozens of Nigerian girls like her into prostitution in Europe.

 
Cool glasses
So far, the two men have made use of their right to keep silent, so I am keen to hear the voices of the real people involved and not just those of their judges and lawyers.

 
Solomon, 44, wearing dark sneakers and a brown polo shirt matching his cool glasses, gets up casually as the judge, following a brief recess, announces that the accused will have to leave the courtroom so that Josephine can testify freely.

 
Josephine, just turned 20, plump, beige buttoned up trench coat, peach trousers, straightened hair resting on her shoulders, speaks slowly and timidly in Edo, the language of Nigeria's central southern Edo state, from where many traffickers and their victims originate.

 
Would  she agree to testify in their presence? No, she says, clearly terrified. "I am afraid of all of them, of everyone who is involved in human trafficking. They all know each other."

 
She then calms down and often gesticulates energetically with her left hand as she tells the story of her  traumatic journey to Europe.

 
Voodoo
At the market one day, as she was "selling things" with her sick mother, she met a woman called Queen. The lady offered to find her similar work in Europe, to help support her family. Josephine was grateful. No, she tells the judge, there was no mention of prostitution. She was later brought to Lagos where during a voodoo ritual, a priest said that she would either die or become crazy if she ever revealed anything about the people who helped her travel abroad.

 
Did she have any idea of the value of the 60,000 Euros in travel costs she was told she would have to pay back? No, the only currency she had ever seen was the Nigerian naira, of which she earned 300-500 a day (1.40- 2.30 Euros).

 
Josephine remains calm and volunteers, it seems, a lot of information about her flight to Amsterdam and her asylum application. But when the judge asks: "Is this Solomon?", showing a photocopied picture, she freezes and remains silent. Yes, it's him. "I'm afraid," she says. The interpreter offers her a tissue. She cries and says that she doesn't want to say anything about this anymore. Her voice is weak, almost inaudible.

 
Death threats
Solomon, she says while squeezing the tissue in her right hand, is the one who picked her up from the detention centre for minors in The Netherlands and put her on a night bus to Italy, along with Joy, Teresa and another girl. There, she was introduced to a woman called Lovely, but it was during a phone call with Queen that she heard for the first time that she'd be working as a prostitute.

 
"Prostitution, street, money": I pick up three words that summarize Josephine's life in Italy, before we hear the voice of the interpreter again. "They forced me to work in prostitution, otherwise they would murder my family in Edo." After her statements to the Dutch police in 2006, some people were arrested and since then, she says, her family has received death threats, and her mother has had to move three times.

 
Her testimony is over, but Josephine suddenly becomes desperate after someone remarks that it would have been preferable for the accused to be present.

 
"Never, never, never," she screams, just before leaving the courtroom.