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A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

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Resources > Global Issues > Nigeria – Traff... > Background on Tra... > Family, School an...

Family, School and Culture

African families are often portrayed as large, loving, and extended groups that support members who lapse or need help. This is not the picture that emerges from trafficking. Some Nigerian girls have even been "traded" to traffickers by their own parents-sometimes without their knowledge.

Often the first contact comes from a school friend, who is recruited by the traffickers to gain the confidence of the victim. The fact that recruiters are starting to move into schools horrifies but does not surprise educators. The quality of education in Nigeria fell sharply during the years of military rule, and teachers find it difficult to keep girl students from dropping out.

Education is also expensive for poor families. They have to buy pencils, uniforms, sandals, and books. Prostitution can seem very attractive. The insidious appeal of travel to Europe only makes it harder.

Jane Edeki (left) and Esther Onosode of AWEG.

The African Women Empowerment Group (AWEG) brings together a group of professional women in Benin City. Together, they are emerging as an effective force against trafficking and taking the fight into schools and even families.

AWEG came into existence in March 1995 and made its mark a year later when it organized a meeting for 5,000 women. Its aim is to help women acquire the skills they need to develop, personally and professionally, and open up opportunities through education and literacy.

This applies to trafficking. "If women were empowered, they would not allow themselves to be trafficked," says Jane Edeki, a senior official at the State Ministry of Education and AWEG member.

AWEG has 20 members in Benin City. Most are middle class-some would say privileged-in a country of extreme poverty. But they are making inroads into the ignorance and superstition that have held women back and made them vulnerable to trafficking.

For groups like AWEG inveigling superstitious girls into the practice of trafficking fits the pattern. It is another example of societal violence against women, masquerading as "tradition."

"When a man dies, it is assumed he was killed by his wife," says Esther Onosode, of AWEG. "In order to prove her innocence, the widow is made to drink the water that was used to wash the corpse, complete with chemicals. If she dies, she was guilty."

Widows are also made to sleep next to the corpse of their dead husband for several days, sit on the ground for a week, and eat from an unwashed plate with her left hand. 

"We appealed to their sense of fairness, and made it clear we were not trying to kill traditional practices," -- Esther Onosode, AWEG member

AWEG's goal is to show that these practices discredit and undermine traditional African values. Jane herself underwent a mild form of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) when she had her first child, but she has managed to discourage her younger sisters and her own children. In her family at least, the cycle has broken. AWEG and its partners recently chalked up their biggest success by getting FGM banned in Edo State, which is one of only two Nigerian states to outlaw the practice.

They feel they can have the same success with trafficking. They met with the Oba of Benin (paramount chief) and asked him to invite all the chiefs to meet with them in local government offices throughout the state.

"We appealed to their sense of fairness, and made it clear we were not trying to kill traditional practices," says Esther Onosode, another member of AWEG. Surprisingly, men have proved more receptive than women. Perhaps it is because so many women were themselves forced to undergo prostitution before they make a profit, but women are proving to be powerful, well-organized advocates.

AWEG is a network within a network. When Bisi Olateru-Olagbegi of WOCON was looking for speakers from Benin State for a seminar on trafficking last December, she turned to AWEG. Outside Nigeria, AWEG is affiliated to six women's groups in other African countries-Lesotho, Harare, Botswana, Ghana, Sudan, and Kenya.

These are women with a cause, who are ready to dig into their own pockets. AWEG's 20 members have come up with enough money to run a small office at the YWCA in Benin City. They came up with as much as 50,000 Naira ($500) to start one imaginative project known as School-Age Democracy in Nigeria (SADIN), under which they helped students to hold mock elections in 20 schools. They have also brought elected women to Edo State to talk to the electorate. Getting more women elected is an important goal. 

Everything that AWEG has learned is now being thrown into the fight against trafficking. They have held three packed meetings at the city cultural complex and are also planning a mass education campaign for August, 2000.

Aware that schools are the next battle-ground, AWEG has identified ten researchers (all volunteers) who will spend two weeks in ten schools getting to know the counselors and hopefully through them identifying the student recruiters. AWEG hopes that this will open the way to a campaign of intense education into the evils of trafficking.

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