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In Togo, a 10-Year-Old's Muted Cry: 'I Couldn't Take Any More'
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Abdulai said she paid Adiza's wages directly to Wuregawu, the go-between. Over the past year, she said, she had given Wuregawu about $42, or seven months' salary, on the understanding that Wuregawu would take the money to Adiza's family.
She didn't send Adiza to school, she said, because "that's her parents' responsibility."
"I was teaching her how to cook," she said.
Sitting in her yard, Abdulai denied that she beat Adiza -- except for one time, on the day the girl left. She said Adiza had left the house the night before and not returned until after midnight. Furious, Abdulai hit her a few times around the head and shoulders.
"It was more like a spanking, not a beating," she said.
Just Trying to Help
Wuregawu sat on a wooden bench in a Lome neighborhood last week, wearing flowing red African robes, a matching head scarf, and gold jewelry dangling from her neck and ears.
"I'm not a trafficker," she said, laughing and waving her hands, dismissing the idea. "I'm a trader. The families of these children need help, the employers need help, so I provide for both of them."
She said bringing Adiza to Lome was a "service," for which she wasn't paid.
"When you go to the villages, you see that the people are suffering because they are very poor," she said. "They think that if they can go to the city, they will not suffer. So I help them."
Wuregawu said she had brought only Adiza and one other girl to Lome.
She confirmed that Abdulai had given her $42 for Adiza's wages and said she used the money to buy clothes for Adiza to put toward her wedding dowry, which she was storing for the girl in her home.
Asked if a 10-year-old girl might need the money, or the clothes, now rather than later, Wuregawu said she was simply following local tradition.
