MAASTRICHT - Afroshop Mama Bee on the Boschstraat in Maastricht served, according to the justice department, as a base to obtain passports for human trafficking in recent years. Main suspect in this mega case, Peggy A., allegedly selected negroid women in the shop.
Those women, legally residing in the Netherlands, resembled in appearance the underage girls that Peggy A. (28) is alleged to have brought to South Limburg from Nigeria. A. (28) and owner Blessing I. (26) of the Afroshop would then have asked them for their passports in order to force Nigerian teenagers to work in red light districts or brothels in South Limburg and its surroundings. This is also how it is said to have gone for 27-year-old Isabelle S. from Heerlen, who had to appear in court yesterday. She admitted to lending her passport for a monthly fee of 150 euros. For this, the prosecutor demanded 120 hours of community service and a suspended two-week prison sentence with a two-year probation period.
S. told the judge yesterday that she lent her passport with the best of intentions. "While she was doing my hair, Blessing said once that I looked like her niece. That niece had just arrived in the Netherlands and had to wait for a residence permit. Since she had no money, she wanted to work in prostitution anyway. Blessing asked if she could borrow my passport for this purpose. I didn't see the harm in it and wanted to help that girl. That I also got some money for it, I didn't mind." In March 2009, S. gives her passport to the niece. "In the back of the store is a little room where the frozen foods are also sold. Here was a small black desk. When Blessing took the money out of the drawer, I had to turn around. I wasn't allowed to look." Until August, S. received her money. She never got her passport back; she now has an ID card. "Peggy said at one point that the niece could no longer afford that money. That's why she would give my passport to another girl."
When the judge and prosecutor want to know why she didn't demand her pass back then, she shrugs. "I don't know either. It was stupid. But I liked the money because I was 60,000 euros in debt." Her lawyer Patelski argues for acquittal. "My client is not a criminal because when Peggy asked if she wanted to smuggle drugs or enter into a sham marriage she said 'no.' Client is naive at best." At the end of the hearing, it dawned on the now crying Isabelle that partly because of her passport, at least two teenagers could be forced into prostitution. Justice stressed, however, that S. was not complicit in this human trafficking.
