Funeral for Favour today
Funeral and burial today for Favour Nike Adekune, a 20-year-old victim of human trafficking from Nigeria. She was tricked into moving to Italy then forced into prostitution. Two years ago, a client picked her up, drove to the outskirts of town, and she was never seen alive again. The next day, her fiance was called to identify her unrecognizable, carbonized body which was left on the street. DNA tests proved it was she. Her accused killer hung himself in jail while awaiting trial. Her body -- nothing more than four bones -- remained in the Palermo morgue in a cardboard box for two years because of bureaucratic snafus. Today she was buried with honor, after a ceremony at the Santa Chiara Mission in Ballaro` co-officiated by Catholic priest Don Enzo and Methodist minister Vivien Wiwoloku, also from Nigeria. Present at the ceremony was an official representative of Mayor Leoluca Orlando, who sent flowers from the city of Palermo, the lieutenant of the state police, a city councilman who represents immigrants in Palermo, the mayor of Misilmeri, and the many people who fight against human trafficking in Palermo. She was buried in Misilmeri,the town 12 kilometers from Palermo where her body was found burned and dumped on the street. She was a young girl, cruelly tricked, and never chose the life she was forced to live, the slavery of the 21st century. There are more than 500 Nigerian sex workers in Palermo alone, all victims of human trafficking, plus hundreds of Rumenians and Chinese in the same situation. The problem is worse in northern Italian cities and in France. On her tombstone, which was paid for by several citizens of Misilmeri, are her picture in a frame, her birthday and date of death, and the words "Victim of Trafficking."