I just finished reading an article on afrol.com about Nigerian girls repatriation after being held as sex slaves in Morocco and Libya. You’d never have known, but there’s sex trafficking in Africa. Go figure.

The article says that the girls, like their Eastern European and Southeast Asian counterparts, were trafficked through Europe to their captive locations. Here they are, of course, at the mercy of their captors and are subject to HIV infection, pregnancy, and repeat arrests by unsympathetic law enforcement – not to mention the violation and abuse one imagines they encounter on a daily basis.

Why don’t feminist, anti-trafficking organizations seem to care? As someone who is concerned and tries to stay informed on issues like human trafficking, I have encountered much discussion on trafficking and sexual slavery in Europe, Asia, South America, Mexico, and even the United States. What about Africa? We have all heard of female circumcision in North and East Africa and the militarized rape of women in central Africa, but why has Africa been ignored in the extensive discussion on human trafficking?

This is not a rhetorical question. It is not one that I have an answer to – but we could theorize. With issues that affect only a particular people with a particular color, we must work with what we have. For example, brown women of various shades experience the affects of female circumcision. However, as the debate continues, the voices and lighter faces of middle-Eastern and North African women have taken center stage.

In contrast, as human trafficking affects people of all colors, it is those who are deemed most sympathetic who get the font page. That is, European women or women who most closely resemble European women – those with lighter skin, more delicate features, and straighter hair. Racist constructions of gender have deemed White women the only potentially virtuous or deserving women – the only ones that could be really be sexually victimized.  

Could this be the reason that I’d never read much about human trafficking in Africa? Are African women unable to garner the same sympathy and outrage that European, Asian, and Hispanic women can?

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