Trafficking As a Means of Survival: Proposing a Counter-Narrative on Women’s Involvement in Nigerian Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
Trafficking As a Means of Survival: Proposing a Counter-Narrative on Women’s Involvement in Nigerian Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
Thursday, 10 July 2025
Location: SJES024 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
Distributed Paper
Several studies have acknowledged the correlation between the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in the Global South and the local need to resort to alternative livelihood methods. Among these cases is Nigeria, where economic depression and the adoption of SAP resulted in the rise of trafficking for sexual exploitation, particularly of young women, from the mid-1980s onwards.
Over the years, multiple criminal groups have arisen establishing an empire based on the exploitation of young compatriots. The rackets have demonstrated a constant ability to adapt to geopolitical changes and counter strategies, both internally and externally. Furthermore they have become experts in intercepting pre-existing migration projects generated by various push factors, such as the feminisation of poverty, persistent unemployment and the first-born being breadwinners of the family. Among the factors, the ostentation of wealth by women who have enriched themselves through the phenomenon (so-called madams) is emerging, increasing the involvement of marginalised people in trafficking. Such patterns generate blurred boundaries between coercion and agency in the experiences of the subjectivities.
Taking into account the point of view of trafficked women, this project aims at multiplying perspectives by deconstructing the ‘victim’ stereotype and interweaving a counter-narrative on the phenomenon. The work will address the possibility that trafficking can be considered by women as the sole option to pursue pre-existing migration projects, as well as an alternative livelihood method that they can resort to in order to support their families or to redeem themselves from extreme poverty caused by neoliberal policies, insofar as a certain degree of awareness was found in some subjectivities involved in terms of purposes but not of modalities. To this end, the research will explore pre-existing social and relational practices that foster the phenomenon and will adopt decolonial and gendered perspectives to encourage the re-territorialisation of bodies and narratives.
Over the years, multiple criminal groups have arisen establishing an empire based on the exploitation of young compatriots. The rackets have demonstrated a constant ability to adapt to geopolitical changes and counter strategies, both internally and externally. Furthermore they have become experts in intercepting pre-existing migration projects generated by various push factors, such as the feminisation of poverty, persistent unemployment and the first-born being breadwinners of the family. Among the factors, the ostentation of wealth by women who have enriched themselves through the phenomenon (so-called madams) is emerging, increasing the involvement of marginalised people in trafficking. Such patterns generate blurred boundaries between coercion and agency in the experiences of the subjectivities.
Taking into account the point of view of trafficked women, this project aims at multiplying perspectives by deconstructing the ‘victim’ stereotype and interweaving a counter-narrative on the phenomenon. The work will address the possibility that trafficking can be considered by women as the sole option to pursue pre-existing migration projects, as well as an alternative livelihood method that they can resort to in order to support their families or to redeem themselves from extreme poverty caused by neoliberal policies, insofar as a certain degree of awareness was found in some subjectivities involved in terms of purposes but not of modalities. To this end, the research will explore pre-existing social and relational practices that foster the phenomenon and will adopt decolonial and gendered perspectives to encourage the re-territorialisation of bodies and narratives.