A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Background on Trafficking from Nigeria

Hundreds of Nigerian women and girls have been lured into prostitution in Europe and the Middle East, where they are vulnerable to abuse and violence. The following pages profile those who are campaigning to put an end to this insidious trade. 

Anti-trafficking poster designed by schoolchildren in Benin City.

The work begins in the villages of Edo and Delta States, which produce almost all of the girls who are trafficked from Nigeria. Here, professional women are talking to schoolgirls, teachers, parents, and traditional chiefs. Their message is that trafficking is dangerous and demeaning. It also undermines traditional African values. Also in Edo, a small group of brave Catholic sisters is helping girls who manage to escape from the clutches of traffickers. The sisters in turn receive support from lawyers who provide free legal aid and from the wife of the governor of Edo State who provides political backing.

In the largest city in Nigeria, Lagos, are advocates like the Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) which take the message to the international community. Finally, in Europe, a growing number of civil society groups are working to rescue young Nigerian prostitutes on the streets and offering them a chance to return to Nigeria.

Like many grassroots campaigns, this coalition has a long way to go. In Nigeria it has to battle the many pressures-poverty, disinformation, even family connivance-that are forcing young women into trafficking. Outside Nigeria, the coalition has to persuade other governments-particularly Italy-to provide more protection for the women, to prosecute the pimps and traffickers and to make the way for more legal migration.

These efforts are of great interest to the Advocacy Project. In June 2000, the Project sent a team to Nigeria to work with WOCON. This mission produced a series of On the Record and put together a small packet of information support for WOCON. The series was reprinted in a leading Nigerian newspaper.

The following pages examine several different facets of trafficking, and the campaign that has emerged in response. For the moment, the focus of the pages is mainly on Nigeria. We hope to enlarge them to include the European dimension of trafficking in the future.

For contact information on the campaigners and organizations mentioned in these pages see our 'Resources' section.

* The girls names used in these pages are fictitious.




The Advocacy Project (AP) seeks to empower its partners by encouraging information production. AP is crediting the contents of this section to the Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON).