Human trafficking 'widespread'
Like Miriam, Roda was also discarded after she gave birth to a boy.

The cousins were reunited in Madinatu, where they are now living together in a small mud house, not far from the camp they were trafficked from.

"Luckily, we got to Madinatu on the same day," says Miriam, who spent weeks on the streets of Abuja, before she was able to make her way back to the northeast.

"We thought it was no longer safe to stay in the camp, so talked to the man who owns this place to let us stay here."

To earn money, the girls now make and sell groundnut cakes at a mini kiosk just outside their compound.

They were not the first to be trafficked from the Madinatu camp. There have been many reports of girls being trafficked from the camp to cities in Nigeria and to countries including Italy, Libya, Niger and Saudi Arabia. The victims are often promised good jobs only to end up being exploited or enslaved.

Although widespread in Madinatu, the problem of human trafficking is not peculiar to this area alone. It is common across the entire northeast region.

The 2019 United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons report revealed that: "Sexual exploitation, including sex trafficking of IDPs (internationally displaced persons) in camps, settlements, and host communities around Maiduguri remained a pervasive problem." The report also notes that some security officials are complicit in these activities.

NAPTIP says it is aware of high numbers of cases of human trafficking in Madinatu and is increasing efforts to address the issue in the IDP camp in particular.

"The office has now increased surveillance in the IDP camp," Mikita Ali, head of the NAPTIP office covering the northeast region, says. "We are working with camp managers and camp officials to whom we've given our toll-free numbers and told to call us if they suspect any case of human trafficking."

Nigerian baby factories/Philip Obaji Jr
Mohammed Lawan Tuba, a community leader in Madinatu, urges IDPs to pay attention to messages about how to tackle human trafficking [Philip Obaji Jr/Al Jazeera]