Buchi Emecheta is one of Nigeria's early prominent female writers. Her legacy has created a path of inspiration for contemporary Nigerian women writers. This paper intends to analyze her oeuvres, focusing on the varied womanist representations of Nigerian female characters. As such, a detailed qualitative examination of Emecheta's works, particularly The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Kehinde (1994) and The Family (1990) reveal Nigerian female characters who challenge prescribed understandings of their roles as 'woman', 'wife' and 'mother.' Nnu Ego, Kehinde, Nko and Gwendolen are womanist representations of Nigerian female characters who achieve their agency, subjectivity and determination through redefining their responsibilities as 'women', 'wives', and 'mothers'. As such, Emecheta's female characterizations establish a tradition of women, who are strong, self-willed and empowered despite their varied circumstances, a portrayal worthy of emulation.
Third-generation Nigerian female writers' representation of gender in local spaces through the rethinking of family relationships reflects a development and change from the first and second generation female writers
Sex trafficking is an abhorrent crime in our contemporary times. Malaysia is currently both a transit and destination country, where women from different countries are trafficked in and out of Malaysia for sex purposes. This article focuses specifically on the trafficking of Vietnamese women into Malaysia. We, the researchers of this paper, interviewed a group of 10 Vietnamese women who were caught in a single police raid at an illegal ‘gambling center’ and placed in a women’s shelter in Kuala Lumpur. While this article explores the tragedy of sex trafficking and the plight of trafficked victims, it also focuses on the politics of the body of the trafficked woman, discussing how the female body has been abused and condemned through manipulation and oppression. This article also reveals how systems of oppression, namely patriarchal cultural practices and gendered discrimination, have helped form a prejudice and suppression of Vietnamese women. Ketu Katrak and Elleke Boehmer’s discussions on the politics of the female body construct the basis of this article’s theoretical framework. At the same time, the literary approach of ‘lived narratives’ offers a unique blend of multiple disciplines of study, including literature, sociology, gender, and politics, to discuss sex trafficking in Malaysia. Overall, this article provides a glimpse into the complex dynamics of sex trafficking in Malaysia.
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