Nigeria seems to have turned into a hotspot for women being smuggled into the sex trade. This shit is crazy.

Trafficking women for prostitution became a problem in Benin City in the mid-1980s when free-market economic reforms led to massive job losses and impoverished many Nigerians.Today, the Nigeria-Italy prostitution trade has become a sinister, self-propagating cycle.
Now, more than 80 percent of Nigerian women trafficked abroad to work in the sex trade come from Edo state, where Benin City is located, according to United Nations estimates. The main destination is Italy.


The reality is some women choose this, but many are smuggled not only for sex work, but for forced labor and domestic help. But this is the part that really got me. Women are being manipulated using local traditional oaths to scare them and force them into sex work.

Before they leave Nigeria, women are taken to traditional shrines where they swear to pay their debts to their madams and not to denounce them to the police.
The women leave fingernails, pubic hairs, soiled underwear and other intimate items at the shrines. These, according to traditional beliefs which are strong in Benin, give the priests power to harm them wherever they are in the world.


Finally, the article talks about this notion of sacrifice and how in this particular culture sacrifice is a sign of femininity. I think that unfortunately is a global phenomenon. The gendering of sacrifice and its connection to women's work


http://feministing.com/archives/006133.html

Well, that is Nigeria for you!  When you have no hope--you are forced to sell your soul to the devil especially in Nigeria. Thanks to our ever super-caring politicians!


You can imagine the spiritual states of these girls or women many years to come after indulging in all these things. How can they ever find a sense of normalcy for heaven's sake?

Thank God a escaped!  Poor girls!

@ AJ

They don't. They become Madams themselves!

almondjoy:

Well, that is Nigeria for you!  When you have no hope--you are forced to sell your soul to the devil especially in Nigeria. Thanks to our ever super-caring politicians!


You can imagine the spiritual states of these girls or women many years to come after indulging in all these things. How can they ever find a sense of normalcy for heaven's sake?

Thank God a escaped!  Poor girls!

good old AJ. i sure miss you