Screams from the Silenced
Ann walked into the Scottish Refugee Council with claims of being abducted, held prisoner, sold as a sex slave, and raped (Ann’s). She was sixteen. Ann is one of countless African women who are victims of sexual exploitation due to the ongoing issue of human trafficking in Africa. In East Africa alone, in the past year, there have been 40,000 victims of human trafficking identified (Musinguzi).
What exactly is human trafficking? It relates to the coerced movement of people for purposes of exploitation, which can be of a sexual nature (FACTSHEET). Trafficking is a very profitable operation, one of the largest for organized crime (Saeed). The extent of the profit is unknown, due to the covert nature of trafficking. One of the aspects of human trafficking, sex slavery, which is the coercion of people to perform sexual acts, is an ongoing issue with few statistics. There is no systematic research available that addresses the prevalence of sex slavery in the Southern African region (FACTSHEET). The Human Sciences Research Council performed research on the matter, but did not gather any quantitative data (FACTSHEET).
The reason that numerous women are abducted and trafficked against their will is due to the demand for prostitutes in European countries. In Italy, a major part of the tourist scene is the copious number of African prostitutes, over 15,000 Nigerian women, who have been lured there under false pretenses (Guest). Women are given a fruitless opportunity to buy their freedom, with one woman stating she would have needed to pay $50,000, which is equal to her having sex with 3,000 clients (Guest). Women are taken from Benin City, Nigeria, to European countries for what they think are job offers, such as hairstyling, or schooling. They are tricked into believing it is their duty to leave home for these opportunities. Traffickers use the juju, which is traditional witchcraft, to convince the women to accept these false offers (Damon).
The governments of various African countries have implemented new laws in an effort to combat the issue of human trafficking. The International Organization for Migration found only eight cases of human trafficking over the course of four years, from 2004 to 2008 (FACTSHEET). Nigeria was the first African country to create an anti-trafficking agency, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, often referred to as its acronym, NAPTIP (Saeed). In an effort to combat this issue as well, South Africa, an origin and destination for human trafficking, passed the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act No. 7 (Saeed). This act attempted to combat human trafficking by implementing serious penalties when convicted of the crime. On the contrary, Burundi, a country in East Africa, failed to complete a draft of anti-trafficking legislation, and only arrested two suspected traffickers in 2012 despite being a known source country for trafficking victims (Musinguzi).
Although measures have been taken to address human trafficking and sex slavery, the extent of how many people are affected is still unknown. The subject itself continues to be greatly stigmatized in African society. Women are apprehensive to come forward due to the criminalization of sex work and the victim shaming that they face upon their return to their home country. Without major action, the problem and victim count will continue to rise.
Works Cited
“Ann's Story – Human Trafficking Victim.” Anti Trafficking Consultants RSS,
Damon, Arwa. “The Sex Trafficking Trail from Nigeria to Europe.” CNN, Cable News Network,
“FACTSHEET: Understanding Human Trafficking.” Africa Check,
africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-understanding-human-trafficking/.
Guest, Iain. "Italy, Forced Prostitution and Women From Nigeria." International Herald Tribune,
24 June 2000, p. 8. Global Issues in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A62908975/GIC?u=los42754&xid=527799ce. Accessed 5 Mar. 2018.
Musinguzi, Bamuturaki. “Human Trafficking: The Modern Form of Slavery Eating up
East.”Daily Monitor, 31 Aug. 2013, www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Human-trafficking--The-modern-form-of-slavery-/689844-1974562-97y198/index.html.
Saeed, Taneem. “Human Trafficking in Sub Saharan Africa.” Untold Stories of the Silenced, 4
Dec. 2015, www.untoldstoriesonline.com/human-trafficking-in-sub-saharan-africa/.
I really liked how your article flowed. It was super easy to follow your thought process and it was interesting to learn about. I also thought your conclusion worked well in looking even more into the mysteries of the issue.
ReplyDeleteMy main takeaway is that the cycle of the abuse of women is a trap that is very hard to recover from and does not give females freedom. For the women to return home, what do they do once they have come back?
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