Groups supported by the Catholic Church have been by far the most successful in helping to free women from sex trafficking. Catholic group Be Free Cooperative as well as the JPIC (Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation) offer counseling for trafficked and abused women, and they have beds for those who need shelter. While there are groups to help rescue and shelter women, there are simply not enough to deal with the tens of thousands of trafficked women in Italy, and adequate prevention remains the biggest challenge and the only real way to stop the trafficking cycle.
In May 2017, Laura Boldrini, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament, visited Benin City and a village in Edo State on what was the first-ever goodwill trip by an Italian politician dedicated to stop trafficking.
I first met Boldrini on a cliff over a migrant shipwreck in Lampedusa when she was the Italian spokesperson for UNHCR. During the height of the Arab Spring arrivals, she was a constant point of reference. She could spout out statistics, phone numbers and perfect sound bites at the drop of a hat. She has not had an easy transition into politics, however, and is the frequent object of vitriol, both online and in person. Some of the abuse is because of her open-arms approach to migration, which does not sit well with a number of Italian lawmakers who tend more towards the right in their views. Other abuse is rooted in the sexism that is a standard feature in Italian society.
Fulvio Rustico, Italy’s ambassador to Nigeria, who has been beating his head against a wall for years as he tries to work with his Nigerian counterparts, arranged Boldrini’s trip. They met Julie Okah-Donli, the new director of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, known as NAPTIP.79 The organization works on a limited national budget. In recent years, they have moved from awareness campaigns that often fell on deaf ears to active participation in the search for, and legal prosecution of, traffickers. In March 2017, they were instrumental in assuring the conviction of Serah Ekundayo Ezekiel, a woman who was found guilty of recruiting women to be trafficked to Italy. She was sentenced to seven years in prison, which is a success in and of itself, though her conviction remains one of very few success stories in Nigeria’s efforts to stop trafficking.
Okah-Donli was tapped to lead the group in 2017 in an effort to revamp the entire anti-trafficking organization, which has itself been accused of employing complicit officers who are actually part of the trafficking rings. “We must collectively eradicate all forms of corruption within the system, especially in investigation of reported cases of trafficking,” she said at her inaugural press conference in April 2017. “Any staff caught in this practice will be dealt with in line with the provisions of the civil service rule and thereafter handed over for further necessary action if found guilty.”
The very fact that she felt obligated to address such corruption at the heart of the agency meant to stop trafficking underscores one of the greatest challenges. Coupled with corruption in Italy’s own approach to the trafficking scheme, the women really stand no chance once they are on their way to Europe.
Okah-Donli has also insisted that Italy and other European nations who want to stop the flow of Nigerians to Europe must invest in Nigeria to create real jobs to give people a reason to stay. Despite being one of the richest African nations, they haven’t been able to institute programs to create employment outside of the oil fields, which are controlled by the wealthy few.
Boldrini agrees to a certain extent, but her hands are tied. Italy’s focus tends to echo Europe’s sentiments that it is better to institute border controls first and then worry about making life behind the fences better. Countless attempts to invest in infrastructure in Libya to try to lend stability to that nation have proved fruitless as well. Italy, coming out of its own triple-dip recession, doesn’t have a lot of spare cash to be generous with, especially in dealing with a bureaucracy that is even more corrupt than its own. Still, investing in Nigeria would almost certainly impact the trafficking flows.
If Okah-Donli’s intentions bear fruit, it will be a major improvement for anti-trafficking efforts from within Nigeria. Under the old guard, NAPTIP processed just 4,755 trafficking investigations since the agency was created in 2003. Most of these are launched only after the women are repatriated back to Nigeria, either from Libya or Italy. Okah-Donli’s new agenda addresses one of the major obstacles – warning young women in Nigeria that they are prime targets.
“As part of my vision concerning awareness creation, NAPTIP officers will commence a weekly sensitization campaign at diverse public places around the country,” she promised. “In addition, the agency will launch a massive nationwide campaign against human trafficking. NAPTIP will seek out Nigerians in market squares, town halls, village squares, schools, motor parks, churches, and so on.”
“We will show pictures, engage them in local languages with victims’ stories. I will revamp our hotlines so that they can function like the ones you have in developed countries. Anytime any Nigerian calls, NAPTIP will not only answer, NAPTIP will respond.”
Her promises, however noble, beg one question: what has the agency been doing until now?
NAPTIP says it works to “empower” these women upon their return, though most of the women would disagree. The UN’s trafficking report also finds that many Nigerian women and children are taken to other western and central African countries, as well as to South Africa. There they are also trafficked for the commercial sex industry or for domestic servitude. The challenges are clearly enormous on both sides of the Sahara Desert.
During Boldrini’s meeting, Okah-Donli admitted that they have not made enough progress in breaking the trafficking ring. The very fact that Facebook pages and other online forums exist that help facilitate the sale of these women through pictures and descriptions is appalling, but it also shows how sophisticated the trafficking network is and how it is able to operate with relative ease. “There must definitely be a cartel there. We have not been able to break through this cartel,” she said. “We are looking for ways where we will partner more with these other countries where these girls are brought back from, so that we can break into this cartel and investigate deeper.”80 Again, the fact that this isn’t already being done underscores the problem. Nigeria blames the Libyan smugglers who ferry the girls to Italy; in turn, Italy blames the traffickers in Nigeria.
The reality is that the only way to stop this horrific cycle is to stop trafficking at its roots. Trying to intercept it along the many trafficking routes is like trying to divert a river with tiny pebbles – the water will only find another way to flow. Italian judge Maria Grazia Giammarinaro served as the Special Representative and Coordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) from 2010 to 2014. Her findings were among the most profound and most often ignored observations about why trafficking exists. Speaking to a group of mostly women interested in trafficking at the end of her mandate, she pointed out what she thought must be done.
I have reiterated what grass roots organizations and agencies operating within conflict-affected areas . . . have been denouncing during the past few years, since the mass migration crisis erupted in Europe: trafficking in persons in conflict and crisis situations is not a mere possibility, but a consequence of crisis and conflict on a regular basis, which means that trafficking is a systemic outcome of conflict.81
One of the potential missed opportunities to intervene is surely on the NGO rescue boats. Doctors Without Borders does have an anti-trafficking specialist, Sarah Adeyinka, who frequently spends time on board their ships, but most of the NGO rescue ships do not have such experts. Adeyinka came into the job because her own cousin was trafficked from Nigeria to Libya. She ended up being repatriated back to Nigeria after a rare revolt against the trafficker in Libya, but Adeyinka, who was working with victims of sexual abuse before concentrating on trafficked women, has heard hundreds of stories from those onboard the ships who weren’t so lucky. NGO workers say the obst
acle in identifying trafficked women at the moment they are plucked from the sea is that the rescues are so dangerous and chaotic and the women are often injured or so traumatized that, even if they are obviously being trafficked, they may not accept that sort of truth at the time. One rescuer told me that she hated to be the one to tell them what might be happening because, first, she might be wrong, and second, because the rescue from the smuggler’s ship is the only moment of relief most people feel on the whole journey. To be pulled from the water and then told they will most likely become a sex slave seems just too cruel. But I have to wonder if that’s not an opportunity for action. If Joy, whom I met outside Cara Minea, had known on the rescue ship why she shouldn’t call the number sewn into her jacket, she might have been saved sooner. To have dedicated people on every single rescue ship who are trained to intervene might only be a drop in the ocean, but at least it wouldn’t leave all the heavy lifting to the nuns once the girls have already been exploited.
When I sat with IOM’s Carlotta Santarossa and heard about the brochures they hand out when people are offloaded at Italian ports, I couldn’t help but wonder why that sort of information isn’t being given out on the rescue ships as well. The answer is simple: it’s not the rescuer’s mandate to identify trafficked women, it’s to save people’s lives. It’s hard to argue with that point, and given that the NGOs only account for around a third of all rescues at sea, it’s clear that the problem is immense. The other two-thirds of the migrants and refugees are picked up by the Italian Coast Guard, the EU’s Frontex boats and passing merchant ships, none of which are in any sort of position to do much but get these people out of immediate danger.
Other anti-trafficking NGOs like Progetto Integrazione Accoglienza Migranti (PIAM), run by Princess and her husband, do try to meet women when they arrive in Italian ports, but it is next to impossible to know what the demographic make-up will be of those on the rescue ships or even where migrants will dock until the last minute because the Coast Guard’s command center is often juggling multiple ships at the same time. It is also difficult to gain access to the reception areas, which tend to be in the military sections of the Italian ports.
Here, too, intervention at this stage of arrival rarely takes place, even though it could make a vital difference. The authorities who process the migrants at the port just don’t have the manpower or the expertise to do more than move thousands of people through the process from rescue to asylum application.
Instead, the simple fact is that no one tells the girls they have likely been trafficked, even though everyone along the chain suspects they are. No one warns them that the phone number they are carrying will lead them to a madam pimp, debt bondage and sex slavery. No one takes them aside and asks questions.
And worse, even if a woman, at that moment, realizes she has been trafficked for sex, she has so few options. She cannot go back across the sea, back through Libya and the desert towards home. No migrant caravans head in the opposite direction. At this point, she must still go forward through the legal asylum process and hope for the best, trying not to fall into a trap that catches almost everyone.
Cast of Characters
Nigerian Sex Trafficking Victims (names have been changed in some cases)
Dolly – arrived by smuggler ship to Lampedusa in 2011 and went on to become a window girl in Amsterdam before leaving prostitution to get married.
Joy – rescued by Italian coastguards from a sinking rubber raft and placed at CARA Mineo Center for Asylum Seekers from where she was identified as a victim of trafficking in an Italian police operation called Skin Trade in 2016 and later gave testimony against her traffickers.
Betsy – trafficked at the age of fourteen and rescued from the Domitiana when she was six months pregnant, gave birth to a daughter called Faith.
Rose – escaped from the Domitiana with her boyfriend after being beaten by her madam, was later abused again by a corrupt cleaning company while working at an American military unit based near Naples.
Favour – came to Italy by way of Lampedusa and was found strangled and burned in Parco della Favorita in Palermo. Her body was later stolen from a city morgue.
Holly – testified about arms trafficking in and around Castel Volturno after being forced to perform sex acts on a bed over a cache of grenades and arms.
Loveth – fifteen-year-old murdered in Palermo in likely revenge killing after her trafficked mother tried to leave her madam.
Beauty – mother of Emanuele, saved from the Domitiana by Sister Rita.
Honey – saved from the Domitiana by Sister Rita, became a cook at Casa Ruth.
Blessing Okoedion – advocate for victims’ rights and author of The Courage of Freedom about her escape from sex traffickers on the Domitiana.
Princess Inyang Okonom – advocate for victims’ rights and co-founder of PIAM Onlus, which helps rescue sex trafficked women in northern Italy.
Mamans, Madams and other sex traffickers
Most victims of sex trafficking never know their madams’ real names. These names represent those who appear in court documents, interviews and the victims’ recollections.
Maman Alice – recruiter in Nigeria who arranged for Blessing’s false visa and transportation to Spain and Italy.
Maman Glory – recruiter in Spain who helped facilitate Blessing’s transfer to Italy.
Mamma Lucky – former madam who ran a shop on the Domitiana selling ethnic food and objects used in the JuJu curse. She died in 2016 and is buried in a section for unnamed migrants in Pozzuoli cemetery.
Madam Faith – the Nigerian madam who owned Blessing in Castel Volturno.
Madam Pamela – real name Gift Akoro, a twenty-eight-year-old madam who was arrested under operation Skin Trade. She had a list of the names of young women expected to arrive by migrant vessel in her possession when she was arrested.
Madam Juliet – real name Toyin Lokiki, a thirty-one-year-old madam who was arrested under operation Skin Trade. She had JuJu curse relics in her possession.
Lady Ga Ga – a madam who operated out of a hair salon next to the Ob Ob Fashion Tailor Shop on the Domitiana in 2008 when Camorra gunmen massacred six African men.
Serah Ekundayo Ezekiel – one of the very few women convicted by Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for recruiting and trafficking women to Italy. She was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The Nuns
Sister Rita Giaretta – Catholic nun and member of the Ursuline Sister order who co-founded and runs Casa Ruth in Caserta.
Sister Assunta – Catholic nun and member of Ursuline Sister order who assists women at Casa Ruth in Caserta.
Sister Eugenia Bonetti – Catholic nun and member of the Consolata Missionary Sister order who founded the anti-trafficking organization Slaves No More.
The Mafia
Camorra – Italian organized crime syndicate that operates around Naples.
Cosa Nostra – Italian Mafia organization that operates in Sicily.
’Ndrangheta – Italian organized crime syndicate that operates in Calabria.
Sacra Corona – Italian organized crime syndicate that operated in Puglia until the early 2000s, now replaced by a myriad of criminal gangs.
Mafia Capitale – criminal organization operating in Rome.
Salvatore Buzzi – head of Mafia Capitale, convicted of siphoning off funds intended for migrant and refugee support.
Vittorio Casamonica – Roman mobster buried in an extravagant funeral in Rome in 2015.
Alfonso Cesarano – Camorra gunman convicted of killing six African men at the Ob Ob Exotic Fashion Tailor Shop in September 2008. Serving life sentence in prison.
Francesco Chianese – fruit vendor and Camorra associate thought to have trained militias in Libya and Nigeria, well known to Nigerian gangs in Castel Volturno, linked to Jihadist cell in France. Smuggled arms to Naples in extra-large Nigerian potatoes. Arrested in May 2016.
Pupetta Mar
esca – known as Lady Camorra, murdered her Mafia husband’s killer. Lives in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast.
Bernardo Provenzano – boss of Sicilian Mafia arrested in 2006 after forty-three years on the run from law enforcement.
The Nigerian Gangs
Black Axe – known for wearing black and red ribbons, first to arrive in Italy, originated from rebellious gangs in university communities in Nigeria, focused on sex and drugs trafficking.
EIYE – known for wearing black hats.
Maphite – known for wearing red and green, based in northern Italy near Turin.
Black Cats – Nigerian gang that handles large orders of illicit drugs brought in from West Africa. Assists in smuggling of trafficked women. Local Italian boss thought to be a madam in Castel Volturno.
Ameyaw Bismark (Kelly) – former leader of Black Axe gang working with Camorra in sex and drugs trafficking; in Italian prison.
Bongo Issaka – former second in command of Black Axe gang working with Camorra; in Italian prison.
Kennedy Osazi – trafficker with the EIYE gang in Castel Volturno recruiting Nigerian men to push heroin and purchase trafficked women; in Italian prison.
Collins Twumasi – Nigerian member of EIYE gang who turned himself in and gave evidence about how he and others buy and sell trafficked women. Serving ten-year sentence in Italian prison system.
Alleged Arms and Drugs Traffickers
Roadmap to Hell Page 20