The Road to Italy: Nigerian Sex Workers at Home and Abroad

Achebe, Nwando

doi:10.1353/jowh.2004.0002

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…In a globalizing economy where media industries and sexual commerce offer avenues for mobility and profit (Bernstein, 2007;Ehrenreich and Hoschchild, 2002), black women are finding new ways to employ erotic embodiment by putting sexuality to work in often informal, illicit economies of sex (Achebe, 2004;Collins, 2006;Kempadoo, 1999Kempadoo, , 2005. Noting their complex eroticization in transnational racial economies of desire, Kemala Kempadoo asserts that, 'the sale of sexual labor is an integral part of many working Third World women's lives and strategies' (Kempadoo, 1998: 124).…”

Section: Illicit Eroticism In a Global Economy Of Sex Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography

Miller-Young

2010

Sexualities

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This article focuses on the labor marginalization of black female performers within the pornography industry. Their representations and experiences as sex workers are shaped by a racialized and gendered sexual commerce where stereotypes, structural inequalities, and social biases are the norm. Black women are devalued as hyperaccessible and superdisposable in an industry that simultaneously invests in and ghettoizes fantasies about black sexuality. In light of feminist arguments against the victimization of women by pornography, I have attempted to show that black sex workers, while facing multiple axes of discrimination and harm, also employ hypersexuality and illicit eroticism to achieve mobility, erotic autonomy, and self-care.

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Section: Illicit Eroticism In a Global Economy Of Sex Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography

Miller-Young

2010

Sexualities

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“…Some, especially Nigerian women, know before departure they will pay through sex work with law enforcement agents or other key people along the route. Others are trapped into fierce sexual exploitation through debt bondage with the young ones, again frequently Nigerian, eventually destined to European sex industry [ 9 - 11 ]. The poorer sub-Saharan migrants who cannot afford a full-package smuggling, try to meander along the routes by the little means they have, fragmenting their journeys at the ‘migration hubs’ at longer interval [ 7 , 9 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both at the ‘hub’ cities as at the Algerian-Moroccan borders there are migrants who organized themselves into ‘migration professionals’ assisting, managing, controlling and/or exploiting the migrants on the way. Especially at the Algerian-Moroccan border, which was closed between 1994 and 2005 following diplomatic tensions [ 1 ], these men have a strong reputation of operating in gangs led by chairmen, robbing and attacking the migrants in impunity as official authority is lacking [ 9 , 11 , 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual violence and sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco: a community-based participatory assessment using respondent driven sampling

Keygnaert

Dialmy

Manço³

et al. 2014

Global Health

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BackgroundThe European Union contracted Morocco to regulate migration from so-called “transit migrants” from Morocco to Europe via the European Neighbourhood Policy. Yet, international organisations signal that human, asylum and refugee rights are not upheld in Morocco and that many sub-Saharan migrants suffer from ill-health and violence. Hence, our study aimed at 1) investigating the nature of violence that sub-Saharan migrants experience around and in Morocco, 2) assessing which determinants they perceive as decisive and 3) formulating prevention recommendations.MethodsApplying Community-Based Participatory Research, we trained twelve sub-Saharan migrants as Community Researchers to conduct in-depth interviews with peers, using Respondent Driven Sampling. We used Nvivo 8 to analyse the data. We interpreted results with Community Researchers and the Community Advisory Board and commonly formulated prevention recommendations.ResultsAmong the 154 (60 F-94 M) sub-Saharan migrants interviewed, 90% reported cases of multiple victimizations, 45% of which was sexual, predominantly gang rape. Seventy-nine respondents were personally victimized, 41 were forced to witness how relatives or co-migrants were victimized and 18 others knew of peer victimisation. Severe long lasting ill-health consequences were reported while sub-Saharan victims are not granted access to the official health care system. Perpetrators were mostly Moroccan or Algerian officials and sub-Saharan gang leaders who function as unofficial yet rigorous migration professionals at migration ‘hubs’. They seem to proceed in impunity. Respondents link risk factors mainly to their undocumented and unprotected status and suggest that migrant communities set-up awareness raising campaigns on risks while legal and policy changes enforcing human rights, legal protection and human treatment of migrants along with severe punishment of perpetrators are politically lobbied for.ConclusionSub-Saharan migrants are at high risk of sexual victimization and subsequent ill-health in and around Morocco. Comprehensive cross-border and multi-level prevention actions are urgently called for. Given the European Neighbourhood Policy, we deem it paramount that the European Union politically cares for these migrants’ lives and health, takes up its responsibility, drastically changes migration regulation into one that upholds human rights beyond survival and enforces all authorities involved to restore migrants’ lives worthy to be lived again.

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“…Over the last two decades, Florence's hometown of Benin City, in Edo State, Nigeria, has become a notorious hub of migrant sex work, sending waves of young women like her to Europe (Achebe ; Carling ). Women from the region were first recruited in the 1980s to do agricultural work in Italy, but many quickly found more lucrative work in prostitution.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing with God: Religion, Resistance, and the State in Nigeria's Counter‐Trafficking Programs

Vanderhurst

2017

PoLAR

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Over the past fifteen years, the Nigerian government has stopped many young migrant women from trying to leave the country, identifying them as victims of human trafficking and referring them to a federal antitrafficking agency for protection and rehabilitation. Relatively few women accept these interventions outright, due in part to ingrained suspicion of state officials and institutions. This article uses ethnographic research from one state‐run shelter where these would‐be migrant women were detained to examine how state counselors there justified their actions and how migrant women interpreted them. Where the moral authority of the state has been depleted, it shows how shelter staff urged residents to find trust in government through trust in God, and how women in turn made claims on the state through religious idioms of conversion and salvation. Ultimately, it demonstrates how ad hoc relationships of governance are forged in one fervently contested encounter between citizens and the state in Nigeria.

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The Road to Italy: Nigerian Sex Workers at Home and Abroad

Cited by 21 publications

References 1 publication

Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography

Putting Hypersexuality to Work: Black Women and Illicit Eroticism in Pornography

Sexual violence and sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco: a community-based participatory assessment using respondent driven sampling

Governing with God: Religion, Resistance, and the State in Nigeria's Counter‐Trafficking Programs

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