UPDATE: By the time you're reading this, I'm probably back in New York. The U.S. Embassy has successfully helped me travel back! Thank you so much for alerting them about this, I appreciate you all taking time out of your day to report this. I will be leaving a duplicate petition up as although my personal situation has been resolved, this loophole is still present.

My parents have trapped me in Nigeria and taken my wallet, passport, ID, phone, leaving me with no way out and no resources to help. During the summer my mom said that just me and her would go for a 2-week vacation to Nigeria, knowing that I have never been outside of America before. My mother and I have butted heads over many issues in the past, so I figured besides being able to see another country, this'll be a good time for me and my mother to make amends and rebuild our mother-daughter relationship. It was August 15th 2023 we landed and from there we ventured out with her sister and she taught me about the culture etc. At 6.A.M, September 1st, she wakes me up and says that we need to catch a plane to Asaba to meet a family friend. I started to get a little suspicious that I wasn't back home yet as school would resume in 6 days. I asked her multiple times when are we going back and she kept saying she had it covered, not to worry. 

We go to the "family friend's house and 3 hours later, she tells me that I am staying in Asaba and schooling and staying here permanently. Turns out the woman wasn't a family friend, it was just some woman she barely knew that worked at the school. In a rush she then takes my stuff and books it back to America, leaving me with people that I don't know. This broke me mentally, leaving me restless and crying 24/7. I didn't have an appetite and couldn't eat for days. It was her own sister that came down to Asaba to bring me back to Lagos after seeing my state. Eventually my dad came to Lagos to bring me to his house, making it worse. Since he was in Nigeria now, he thought he could freely beat me without any consequences. He beat me with his belt until I was swollen and lumpy. I was screaming so loud that the police came down to check what was going on. When they found out, they told him to refrain from t0uching me. This didn't work though because eventually, he took an electric cord and beat me with it while recording, leaving my skin bleeding, with harsh black lines on my legs and arms and some on my lower back. Seeing what he had done, he tried to trap me in his house without food and water, threatening my life, saying that we will both die here, and everybody will see our rotten dead corpses etc. He dictated when I would use the bathroom and closed the windows/doors so I would overheat. I managed to find a way to tell someone who lived right downstairs, who told him to never do it again and has been helping me get over what I endured and the situation in general. 

Mind you in NY he had gotten CPS called on before him by my guidance counselor before for beating me till I cried. I haven't been in school for months since it started in 2023 and at one point I had attempted to take my own life. I'd like to add that for months I didn't know the date and time. I had even thought that I was still in October, and I was shocked to find out it was the middle of November. I also have had little to no outside communication. Every day for 5 months straight, I would just lay on my dad's bed hoping for this nightmare to end. I was cut off from the internet, planned by my parents so I couldn't report this. 

After finally regaining access to the internet after 5 months, despite reaching out to authorities and organizations for assistance, I have been met with limited support and ineffective responses. The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria has failed to respond to their emails, and CPS says they cannot intervene because I am not in America. This legal loophole leaves minors like me stranded in dangerous situations with nowhere to turn.

My story is not unique; others have faced similar ordeals. Please help close this loophole and ensure the safety and protection of vulnerable individuals, especially minors, who are trapped abroad against their will, as shown in post like these: www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/1ahs880/my_parents_kidnapped_me_and_took_me_to_a_another/
and www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/p2auil/trapped_abroad_by_parents_please_help/ (Though this was in the UK, it still goes to show that situations like these happen and present an issue.)

Please sign/share this petition to end this legal loophole. Thank you!