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Home> Archive> 2012> Volume 2 Number 1 (Jan. 2012)
IJSSH 2012 Vol.2(1): 59-64 ISSN: 2010-3646
DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2012.V2.69

Analyzing Sex Trafficking in Neo-Liberal Nigeria through Nigerian Women’s Writings

Shalini Nadaswaran

Abstract—Human sex trafficking is a global plague, its magnitude staggering, robbing women of their sense of worth and dignity as human persons. With the case of Nigeria, the collapse of the post-colonial nation and the effects of neo-liberal policies have left the country steeped in corruption and poverty. A byproduct of this chaos is symptomatically reflected in the trafficking of Nigerian women into various parts of Europe and the United Kingdom, hoodwinked into fake job offers overseas to relieve their families from poverty. To understand the impact of such an unconscionable exploitation of Nigerian women as resources for the global capitalist flesh trade, a close qualitative analysis of literary novels, specifically Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), Akachi Ezeigbo’s Trafficked (2008) and Abidemi Sanusi’s Eyo (2009) in this paper will be used to demonstrate a representation of Nigerian female characters resisting the liminal spaces of sex trafficking they are forced into through their psychology of willfulness to access freedom. Also, the representations of these Nigerian female characters create an intricate web for us to understand the alarmingly systematic, highly regulated movement and exploitation of modern slavery. The results of this analysis demonstrate the female characters challenging their traffickers through their situation at their point zero space and escape to freedom, yet in their homecoming many turn to trafficking again due to high levels of poverty. Furthermore, Sanusi, Ezeigbo and Unigwe’s writings ultimately serve as a conglomeration of literary works of protest that function as a clarion call to end the dehumanization of Nigerian women through sex trafficking.

Index Terms—Trafficking, Nigerian Women, Neo-Liberal, Representation

Shalini Nadaswaran is with the School of English, Media and Performing Arts, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She is also under a fellowship scheme with the Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (email: sha_nadaswaran@yahoo.com)

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Cite: Shalini Nadaswaran, "Analyzing Sex Trafficking in Neo-Liberal Nigeria through Nigerian Women’s Writings,"  International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 59-64, 2012.
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