A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to produce social change by helping marginalized communities to become advocates for social justice and claim their rights

The Re-admission Agreement

There is growing agreement among campaigners in Nigeria that if European governments are to continue deporting prostitutes, they must do more to humanize the process and help Nigeria-and the girls. This applies particularly to Italy.

Early in 1999, in an important development, the Nigerian and Italian governments negotiated a "Re-admission Agreement" under which the two governments would cooperate to ease the reentry of illegal immigrants deported back to Nigeria. As of June 2000, the agreement has been drafted but not yet signed. It opens the way for accelerated deportations by Italy, and in return commits Italy to funding reintegration projects in Nigeria. Importantly, it also calls for an increase in legal migration from Nigeria to Italy-for example, in cases of family unification.

On paper, an orderly migration agreement of this kind would seem to make a lot of sense, particularly if it resulted in a shift away from law enforcement toward more of an emphasis on social support and protection. Even when it comes to law enforcement, said Mrs. Ojomo from the Nigerian federal police, the Italian government could make it easier for Nigerian police to cope with the trafficking by giving then the chance to visit Italy and meet some Nigerian girls on the streets. They could also benefit from technical training.

But as with all attempts to manage migration, detention, and deterrence are likely to prove more popular than protection and social programs. For the Re-admission Agreement to succeed, all of its components would have to come together at the same time.

This seems unlikely without more political will and urgency at both ends of the trade, and however humane the impulse, it may continue to be drowned out by the need to expose trafficking. As for "legal immigration," the forgers of Benin City are already cranking out birth certificates. This will make it harder to control immigration.

The lack of will is most apparent in the inability of both governments to prosecute the traffickers. This is obviously extremely difficult given the level of intimidation, but one test case needs to come to the courts, otherwise the traffickers will start to feel immune from punishment.

The tide may be starting to turn in Nigeria. On September 22, 1999, an Italian national named Mauro Trocchi was arrested with his Nigerian wife and a 60-year-old Nigerian madam named Titilayo Ojo. The charge was issued by an Italian judge in the Italian city of Modena who was investigating racketeering. One Nigerian girl who was called as a witness was able to describe Trocchi's house in a Lagos suburb, and Trocchi was arrested with the help of Interpol.

It was an important example of what is possible through international cooperation, and some hope that the Trocchi case will shatter the aura of invincibility that surrounds trafficking and protects those involved.

But the case also illustrates the power and wealth that supports trafficking. When we last heard of him, Trocchi was free on bail. He had turned down an offer of help from the Italian embassy, preferring to entrust himself to unseen benefactors. One official at the embassy said that Trocchi's bail was "fantastically large" and clearly beyond the means of a "poor specimen" like Trocchi.