JOS, Nigeria – By day, Nana Plaza at the Old Airport Junction is an unassuming commercial building housing offices and a law firm. But when night falls, the scene behind the plaza transforms into a bustling hub for an illicit trade involving some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens: teenage girls, some as young as 14, selling their bodies to survive .
A recent undercover investigation has laid bare the grim reality of this underground economy, revealing a cycle of poverty, parental neglect, displacement, and drug abuse that forces underage girls into prostitution right in the heart of the city .
“I Have No Choice”: The Stories of the Victims
The accounts of the girls operating in the shadows of Nana Plaza paint a harrowing picture of survival against impossible odds.
Rachael, a 16-year-old mother of one, was just 14 when she was impregnated by a married man who abandoned her. Kicked out of her home and forced to drop out of school, she was introduced to the trade by a woman she worked for, who used prostitution to supplement her fish-roasting business .
Linda, 15, fled her community in Riyom Local Government Area after a violent attack by bandits. After enduring sexual abuse in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, she escaped only to find herself drawn into the commercial sex trade in Jos to provide for her younger siblings .
For Afiniki, 18 and a mother of two, bad friends and peer pressure led her down the path. She recounts making between N5,000 and N10,000 on a good night, but on bad nights, she accepts as little as N200 for sex just to afford a meal the next day. "I regret it every day but there is nothing I can do," she lamented .
A Wider Crisis of Exploitation
This disturbing trend is not isolated to Nana Plaza. Authorities have confirmed it is part of a broader, more organized crisis of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation in Plateau State. In December 2025, a coordinated raid by the Plateau State Task Force Committee on Human Trafficking—comprising NAPTIP, the police, and the NDLEA—rescued dozens of minors from brothels and hotels along the Jos-Bukuru axis .
Some of the rescued children were as young as 11 and were found to have been drugged and exploited . Plateau State Attorney-General, Barr. Philemon Audu Daffi, described the situation as "a painful indictment of societal failure" and "a mirror of what our society has become," attributing the vulnerability of these children to economic hardship, insecurity, and broken homes .
In a further sign of the scale of the problem, NAPTIP announced in February 2026 that it had rescued 184 suspected trafficking victims in recent operations across the state .
A Society at a Crossroads
The situation in Jos highlights a systemic failure to protect the most vulnerable. The teenage girls who walk the streets behind Nana Plaza are not just statistics; they are children who have been pushed into a life of exploitation by hunger, displacement, and a lack of support. While government agencies have ramped up enforcement and rescue efforts, the testimonies of these young girls underscore an urgent need for greater parental responsibility, community intervention, and economic opportunities to break the cycle of poverty that feeds this dark trade.
Attempts to get comments from government authorities regarding the specific situation at Nana Plaza were unsuccessful at the time of reporting .
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