Bright left Nigeria for Rome willingly, not knowing the dark fate awaiting her. Her tale is not unusual, but as Louisa Waugh reports, it does not have to be repeated.

Bright was 22 when she was trafficked from Nigeria. She grew up on a large farm, and after finishing secondary school moved to Benin City in southern Nigeria, where she lived with her aunt and trained as a business administrator. Bright was good at her job and had just been promoted, when a casual friend of her aunt offered her a brand new career in Rome.

“I had never thought of leaving Nigeria before,” says Bright. “My prospects were good and I was happy in Benin City. But this woman, Nancy, knew exactly what to say to entice me to Italy with her. She told me I could easily be employed in a hospital, because in Rome they needed hard working Nigerians like me, and I would earn a good salary. She offered to lend me money for the plane ticket, and said it would take just a few months work to repay her everything – and afterwards I would be making more money for myself than I could ever earn in my own country. It didn’t take me very long to decide to go with her.”

Nancy bought Bright a plane ticket,and asked her to sign a contract before they left. It stated that Bright was indebted to Nancy, and would work for her until the debt was repaid. Nancy assured her this was merely a formality. Bright willingly signed, and the two women left Nigeria together a few weeks later.

The human trafficking networks in Nigeria are dominated by women who pose as successful legitimate migrants in order to recruit young females. The fact that these traffickers regularly target women like Bright underlines the complexities of this ‘modern day slave trade’. Trafficked migrants are not all poor desperate village girls. Many are independent self-motivated women who decide to work abroad to improve their own prospects, and provide for their families.

Outside of Europe migrants often don’t have either the money or the documents they need to reach their destination legally. So they rely on networks of ‘facilitators’ to arrange their journeys. Many of these are smugglers, who insert migrants illegally into another country for a fee, then leave them to fend for themselves. Others,like Nancy, are traffickers who recruit migrants, escort them to a destination, and then either coerce them into work, or sell them on to another trader or pimp. Across Africa and Europe the documented number of female traffickers is rising, as more women are literally cashing in on this trade.

In Bright’s case, as soon as she arrived in Italy, Nancy asked for her passport. She then escorted Bright to a Nigerian woman living in a suburb of Rome – and vanished. “I never saw Nancy or my passport again,” says Bright.“ But this new woman told me she owned my contract now. She said that I owed her €40,000 – and would have to work on the streets every night to pay the money back. When I refused she didn’t beat me. But she threatened to throw me out on the street, and to extort the money from my family. I had no money and no passport, and eventually she frightened me so much that I did what she demanded. I went to work on the street.”

Women, and girls, who are trafficked into prostitution experience appalling psychological, physical and sexual violence. They often learn to be silent and compliant in order to survive and their trust in others is shattered. Because many women are too frightened to confide in anyone, especially police or immigration officers who have the power to detain and deport them, they endure months or even years of sustained abuse.

Human rights organisations in Italy believe up to 10,000 Nigerian women are being trafficked into prostitution across the country. Most are forced to sell sex outside on the streets.

Bright became a sex worker in Rome for several months.Although she wasn’t physically injured herself, she worked alongside women who were raped and battered and thrown out of moving cars. “A lot of these men who pay for sex do not like women,” she says. “I was actually very lucky. After a few months my madam sold me to another Nigerian, and she took me south to Sicily. She confined me in an apartment, and that was safer, though I was still forced to sleep with these men.”

One of the clients who came to see Bright realised she was being coerced into sex. He confronted her madam, and offered to pay Bright’s debt. The madam agreed. The man also contacted a local outreach project run by a Nigerian priest, who immediately offered to support Bright. Her debt expunged, Bright was suddenly released and free to go.

Within the last ten years human trafficking has become one of the world’s fastest growing and most lucrative of organised crimes. The International Labour Office (ILO) estimates two and a half million women, men and children  are being trafficked into forced labour throughout the world. This includes people who are ‘internally trafficked’ within their own country.

On 25 March 2007, Britain will commemorate the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, which criminalised slavery throughout the former British Empire, and led to the eventual abolition of transatlantic slavery. But two centuries after the act was originally passed, human trafficking is truly global.

Researchers and investigators say that one of the main reasons trafficking has expanded so rapidly is because criminal gangs regard it as ‘a low risk, high profit’ crime, which yields massive returns. Illegal drugs can only be sold once. But migrants, especially women and children, are sold and resold, and then rented out by the hour.

Until very recently, research into human trafficking focused on the plight of women and girls sold into commercial sex work. But there’s increasing awareness that trafficking has infested dozens of other international industries. The rise of ‘no-frills’ airlines has spawned a huge network of cheap new trafficking routes. And our demands for cheap clothes, food and construction keeps traffickers in business supplying underpaid or unpaid labour. The ILO has described human trafficking as “the underside of globalisation”.

Last September Anti-Slavery International,the world’s oldest human rights organisation, published a report on trafficking for forced labour in the UK. The report highlighted that migrants who enter the UK legally are also at risk  of being coerced into forced labour by employers who act with near impunity. It pointed out that although trafficking for forced labour has been a criminal offence since 2004,outside of the sex industry there is yet to be a single prosecution.

Anti-Slavery and other human rights organisations like Amnesty International, acknowledge the British government has made progress on tackling trafficking. The Home Office funds a London refuge for 30 trafficked women,and the new UK Human Trafficking Centre (UK HTC) in Sheffield is gathering intelligence on  traffickers across Britain and Europe. The centre is starting to research the entire spectrum of trafficking in the UK, and training police officers to assist  traumatised women and girls.Traffickers convicted in this country are being given increasingly long sentences,and having their cash and assets stripped from them.

Campaigners emphasise that if the UK signed the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings this would guarantee all trafficked migrants at least 30 days sanctuary in the UK. At the moment only migrants trafficked from EU countries are legally entitled to stay here. Anyone from outside Europe has to apply for asylum, and is at risk of being sent back to the country they were originally trafficked from.

The commemoration of the Slave Trade Act provides an opportunity to appoint an independent National Trafficking Rapporteur to liaise between the  government, police, immigration and victim support services. It could also be a platform to launch a national public awareness campaign about trafficking and modern-day slavery in the UK. This campaign should specifically target punters who pay to have intercourse with coerced sex workers. These men are not only violating these women and girls, they are fuelling trafficking: If they are challenged and employers – who coerce migrants into other industries – are prosecuted, the impact on trafficking would be significant.

Above all, it is vital that we offer legal sanctuary and protection to any migrant trafficked into Britain. In Italy, trafficked migrants have been protected by law since 1998. If they can find work, they are also allowed to apply to remain in Italy. This has directly resulted in more traffickers being convicted, and more women like Bright being able to claim their lives back after being violently exploited.

Bright has stayed in Sicily. She has a small apartment, legal residency, and is now working with the outreach team who first supported her. She is still in contact with the man who paid her debt and acknowledges that given what other women endure she was actually very fortunate. “I know what these women are going through,” she says. “I know how to talk with them, and explain that they can get out – and they will be safe here.”

More information

Louisa Waugh’s Selling Olga, Stories of Trafficking and Resistance is published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Images © Lorena Ros/Panos