Summerschool #8: The Nigerian Trap

Most of the many young migrants coming to Europe from Africa are men. About 7 percent of all unaccompanied minor refugees who came to Europe between 2016 and 2018 are women. But 80 percent of those women turn out to be victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Most female unaccompanied minor refugees are victims of human trafficking. In Nigeria they come into contact with a Madam who arranges for them the crossing to Europe from North Africa. Livia Benders made a documentary about this phenomenon in Sicily during the Lost in Europe Summer School Documentary making in Palermo.

She speaks to Hope (18) and Praise (19) who are both under pressure from their families and human traffickers to do sex work. They are protected by Osas (37), who experienced the same in her youth, but who now helps girls to escape from these practices from the Women of Benin City organization.

Lost in Europe research:

Almost 1000 Nigerian asylum seekers disappeared without a trace from Dutch shelters last year. Nobody knows where they are and what happened to them. COA employees report serious signs of human and even baby trafficking.

The first investigations into the disappearance of refugee children in the Netherlands are twenty years old. What have we learned since then? Listen to the radio broadcast of investigative journalist Sanne Terlingen on Saturday 6 June at 2 pm for the next chapter of Lost in Europe at  Argos op NPO Radio 1 or read the longread at Argos website.