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

Italy and Nigeria Connect: TAMPEP

Rosanna Paradiso - Building A Bridge Between Civil Society  in Nigeria and Italy

Rosanna Paradiso - Turning Around Trafficking

Rosanna Paradiso, from the Italian city of Turin, has laid the foundation for an innovative international network of Nigerian and Italian NGOs that will join forces to campaign against the trafficking of Nigerian women to Italy. The initiative is known as "Turnaround," and it seeks to warn Nigerian women of the risk they face before they are tricked into prostitution.

Rosanna heads the Turin branch of TAMPEP, the Transnational AIDS/SIDA Prevention Among Migrant Prostitutes in Europe Project.

TAMPEP-Turin has come face to face with trafficking on the street outside its own office. Hundreds of Nigerian women are engaged in the sex trade in Turin. Rosanna's team tries to persuade them to denounce their traffickers and escape from the trade.

This is done by a team of "cultural mediators," who include former prostitutes. The TAMPEP mediators get to know the women on the streets, and provide them with information about their rights, safe sex and hygiene. (One of Italy's foremost cartoonists, Davide Toffolo, has designed an extremely explicit manual for prostitutes, entitled 'Augusta's Way.' It is extremely popular and widely used.)

If she shows any interest in escaping from her traffickers, the Nigerian is encouraged to come to the TAMPEP office, where the full range of options are explained.

Under a 1998 Italian law, prostitutes are granted a residency permit and a new identity if they agree to denounce their traffickers. Turin's regional and city governments take the problem more seriously that other cities, but even in Turin it is slow going. According to Rosanna, 34 women agreed to denounce their traffickers in 2000, but only one prosecution took place. It is also difficult to find work for the women who decide to take the plunge.

Given these difficulties, TAMPEP-Turin is now trying to go back to the source of the problem, in Nigeria. Rosanna Paradiso and her colleagues hope to launch an extensive program of information in the villages of Edo State, which will inform Nigerian women about the risks of trafficking in Nigeria. This information campaign would use the media (particularly radio) and hopefully coopt traditional rulers (Oba). Back in Italy, TAMPEP will also inform the Italian public about the abuse and violence that is directed against the Nigerian women on the streets of Italy.

The name of this exciting and innovative project is "Turnaround." In September 2001, Rosanna took a TAMPEP-Turin delegation to Nigeria to establish contact with civil leaders, and spread the word about the Turnaround project. The Advocacy Project helped to put the mission in contact with Olabisi Olateru-Olagbegi, who heads WOCON.

Hopefully, this first contact will blossom into a full-blown partnership between civil society in both countries. This would hold out the best - perhaps the only - hope of combating the trafficking, which is of course international in scope. Working at both ends of the trade would make it easier to share experience, lobby governments, and generate funding.

If successful, Turnaround would also be able to count on support from many other actors, including the International Organization of Migration (IOM). IOM's Italian office also sent a mission to Nigeria this summer to work out the details of establishing a safe house for Nigerian woman who are deported from Italy and sent home. IOM has received funding for its work in Nigeria from the emergency aid budget of the Italian government.

Drawing on the success of international campaigns such as ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking), Turnaround also hopes to persuade airline companies that operate on routes between Nigeria and Europe to air videos on the dangers of trafficking.

The Advocacy Project Coordinator visited TAMPEP-Turin in June 2001 and got a first-hand look at some of the impressive work being done by Rosanna and her team. AP has made a commitment to helping Turnaround to develop a website, contact donors, and strengthen the ties between Italian and Nigerian civil society.

For more information on Turnaround, contact Rosanna Paradiso: tampep.italia@libero.it or turnaroundproject@hotmail.com.