From Nigeria to Europe (Revised)

This semester as one of my classes I decided to take the Science of Nutrition.  She talks about 500 miles an hour and she has a very thick accent.  My teacher is from Nigeria and about a week ago she said something about when she lived in Nigeria.  Did you know that Nigeria is one of the most sex trafficked countries in Africa?  Nigeria is different than most places that have sex trafficking because in Nigeria, women are sold by their loved ones and friends. Now since it is sex trafficking and the women have to be transported across the ocean, how is it done?  It would cost more money than a sex trafficker would want to pay to transport a woman by plane or boat, so there must be other ways.

My main goal was to try and figure out how women are transported from place to place.  I have heard people tell me that women have been transported by crate, plane, boat, and none of the rides are comfortable for the woman.  But then an article caught my eye about women trafficked from Nigeria to Europe. I thought perfect!, but when I started to read it I was very disturbed.  Before I tell you what I found disturbing, I will tell you a little bit about how human trafficking works.  All sex trafficking starts off with a recruiter.  A recruiter is someone who can get close to the women and persuade them to go to a place like the United States to have a great job and a better living.  Now that you know that, their relatives and friends recruited the women from Nigeria most of the time. Their own family would trade them in for money.

The article Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe, Nigerian women are tricked into believing that if they disobey the people in charge, then they will either kill the women or their family.  They do this by the process of a traditional voodoo called juju. They take either a piece of hair, nail, or blood from the women and then the women believe that the sorcerer has full control over them.  Also, the organization may also have lawyers who maintain legal documents.  These legal documents maintain the debt responsible for the women and their families.  The legal documents for the debt states that the woman and/or family will pay for the train ticket by a certain time.  If the ticket is not paid for, then either the woman of the woman's family will be killed.

Buker, Hasan. "Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe." Crime and Justice International Magazine. Web. 17 Mar. 2011. <http://www.cjimagazine.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=194>.

The article above is called Transporting Women Sex Workers From Nigeria to Europe by Hasan Buker. In this article you learn what Nigerian women go through during the sex trafficking process.  The women are sold by their own family and friends, they are tricked by sorcerers into staying with the organization and they are also promised a job or marriage.  This article shows me how easy it is for an organization to capture a woman and force her into sex trafficking.  Women in Nigeria do not have a very strong social status, which makes them easy victims.  Because women do not have as strong of a social status as men, they are less likely to have education, which is another way for them to be easily targeted.  The women are told how they will have a better life in America, and how going there will also benefit their family.