Voices of Nigerian Women Survivors of Trafficking Held in Italian Centres for Identification and Expulsion
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12253 |
| Author | Carla R. Quinto,Oria Gargano,Francesca De Masi,Francesca Esposito,Pedro Alexandre Costa |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
Voices of Nigerian Women Survivors of
Trafficking Held in Italian Centres for
Identification and Expulsion
Francesca Esposito*,**, Carla R. Quinto*, Francesca De Masi*, Oria Gargano* and
Pedro Alexandre Costa**
ABSTRACT
This article examines the vicissitudes that affect the migration trajectories of many Nigerian
women who experienced trafficking before arriving in Italy, and end up in Centers for Identifi-
cation and Expulsion (CIE) for undocumented migrants. Their life stories, collected within the
CIE of Ponte Galeria (Rome), revealed violence as “a rule of action”with which these women
are obliged to cope with at different levels. Moreover, they highlighted the failure of tradi-
tional security approaches to human trafficking, and the necessity to rethink the measures
adopted to ensure survivors’protection and rights. As it is conceived, the system of immigra-
tion control prevents the full guarantee of survivors’rights, often labelling them as “illegal
migrants”. Finally, there is the need to extend protection to all survivors of human trafficking
even if the crime against them has not happened in Italy.
INTRODUCTION
The story of humanity as we know it is a story of migrations, of people in constant quests for new
territories in which to settle, and of their expectations for their future lives. Nevertheless, the new
conditions brought about by the phenomenon of globalization, the renewed disproportion between
living standards in different parts of the world, and the new forms of precariousness, have given
new meanings to the crossing of borders by human beings (Berman, 2003; Sciurba, 2009). It is rea-
sonable to assert that the sometimes-dramatic exodus of migrants from their origin countries is
rooted in the profound imbalance between Global North and Global South, between the wealth of
the former and the poverty of the latter. The immigration phenomenon has been interpreted as the
paradox of a post-modern capitalism, which generates poverty, but at the same time needs poor
people to guarantee the functioning of the economic system of wealthy countries (Mancini, 2008).
In this scenario, the idea that migrants represent a threat to internal security has become a wide-
spread belief in many countries, including among European ones (Huysmans, 2000), disregarding
migrants’potential contributions to receiving societies. The creation of a social representation of
the migrant as an external enemy,asthe one that invades and plunders what does not belong to
them, delivers to European citizens a symbolic object on which to vent the insecurities and frustra-
tions caused by the long global economic crisis, the increasing loss of social and civil rights, and
the worsening of living standards. This perspective was also encouraged by political and media
* BeFree Cooperativa Sociale contro tratta, violenza, discriminazioni, Rome
** ISPA-University Institute
doi: 10.1111/imig.12253
©2016 The Authors
International Migration ©2016 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (4) 2016
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
debates that strategically spread a general feeling of insecurity and social alarm (Ambrosini, 2013),
supported by the new terrorism threat. Consequently, the necessary distinction between immigration
and criminality was not sufficiently emphasized. The dangerous confusion between the two actually
occurred in all historical times whenever migratory waves have been more intense and have over-
lapped with significant social and economic uncertainties (CNEL, 2009).
In this context, characterized by the coexistence of conflicting necessities that range from the pro-
tection of migrants’fundamental human rights to the conservation of national security and public
order in the transit and destination States, new forms of slavery, such as the trafficking of human
beings, take form (Adepoju, 2005; Lobasz, 2009; Savona and Stefanizzi, 2007).
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children (2000), supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized
Crime (the so-called Palermo Protocol), which entered into force on 25 December 2003
1
defines
human trafficking as:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use
of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of
a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include,
at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation,
forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
For its intrinsic hidden character, the phenomenon of human trafficking is difficult to quantify,
and the data provided by the different agencies and NGOs are often discordant (Di Nicola and Cau-
duro, 2007; Lobasz, 2009). This is also due to the lack of homogeneous and centralized data col-
lection procedures and, in some cases, the lack of adequate funds for data collection (Di Nicola
and Cauduro, 2007; US Department of State, 2004). In the 2013 report, the US Department of
State estimated that as many as 27,000.000 men, women, and children around the world experience
trafficking at any given time. However, a mere fraction of these persons is recognized by govern-
ments as such, and is eligible to receive the protection and support they are owed (US Department
of State, 2013). The International Labour Organization (ILO) report, covering the period 2002-
2011, highlighted that at a global level, 20,900.000 people are survivors of forced labour, including
forced sexual exploitation; 55 per cent of these are women and girls (11,400.000), as are 98 per
cent of the total number of estimated survivors of forced sexual exploitation (4,500.000) (ILO,
2012). In Europe, 23,632 is the number of presumed or identified survivors of human trafficking
reported by Member States over the 2008-2010 period, 80 per cent of whom are women (Eurostat,
2013). Based on this evidence, it seems undoubtful that human trafficking is a gender-characterized
phenomenon (Abbatecola, Benasso, and Pidello, 2010).
A large debate has been raised around the concept of international human trafficking and differ-
ent frameworks have been adopted for its analysis. Feminists have challenged traditional security
approaches, considering international trafficking as a human rights issue rather than a threat to
states or to the control of their borders. While traditional security scholars have been primarily
focused on the enhancement of border security and migration control, feminist analyses have put
the experience of survivors at the centre of the debate, by denouncing the role of both traffickers
and the state in placing security threats (for a comprehensive discussion, see Lobasz, 2009). In this
view, some authors have spoken about violence as “a rule of action”(Massari, 2009: 5), i.e., a per-
vasive dimension that connotes the relationship with women who experienced trafficking on the
part of illegal networks, pimps and clients as well as of the state itself. Immigration enforcement
actions such as raids, detention, and deportation are examples of this latter type of violence.
Another important feminist contribution regards the acknowledgment of the role of racist and
sexist stereotypes in the construction of the social category of “trafficking victim”, especially with
134 Esposito, Quinto, De Masi, Gargano, Costa
©2016 The Authors. International Migration ©2016 IOM
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