Commodity Woman

This article was published in the daily newspaper “Der Standard” by the authors of the book “Ware Frau” (Commodity Woman). It is a resume of the book.

Source:

Der Standard: Album

March 29th 2008

Human Trafficking. African women pay human traffickers up to € 60,000 for the often

life-threatening transfer to Europe - and thus enter into a sort of slavery

Business with the Commodity Woman

Slavery is in no way only a phenomenon of the past. Tens of thousands of

African women, who are trafficked to Europe for forced prostitution, are

affected.

By Mary Kreutzer and Corinna Milborn

Joy is sitting on a stool, her head hanging down with long, plastic curls skimming the

floor. She hugs her lower legs and rocks back and forth. Behind her a TV mutely

shows a car race. The minutes pass excruciatingly slowly in this combination of

hourly hotel and brothel across the street from the Prater in Vienna, one of the city’s

streetwalking centers. Next door, dusty lace curtains and potted flowers adorn the

cheap ground floor apartments, but in these three windows a red light is burning.

“Small business with drinks and private lodging,” it says on the white cardboard sign

with awkward lettering next to the door. A half dozen young girls sit on the old leather

sofas, all from Nigeria. In the middle thrones a Madame: a scowling older African

woman in a jogging suit with a scarf on her head, hissing sharp commands. Joy

raises her head, sighs loudly and pulls up her jeans. She sits down next to a guest,

puts her hand on his knee, and asks with noteworthy disgust in her voice: “Fuck?”

But the guest is waiting for another girl. When he stands up, Joy sits back down on

her stool and hugs her knees, head down.

Joy is one of ten thousand young Nigerian girls who have been sold to Europe to be

exploited through prostitution. Outside, in front of the brothel, long lines of women

and girls, mostly from Nigeria and in the prime of their youth, stand along Vienna’s

fairgrounds: one barely believes them when they say that they are over 18. They

stand in mini skirts in the biting cold, or they simply wear jeans and athletic shoes.

When one is lucky, the john will pay for a room in an hourly hotel. Otherwise

business is conducted leaning against a tree, or the passenger seat of a car. The

grass and sidewalk are littered with used condoms and tissues. 30 Euros for “a blow

job and intercourse” is the standard rate here; on bad days the prices are halved.

The women and girls have to pay off the traffickers with this pay: they are often

recruited with false promises—a job, a place of study. They are brought to Europe

with falsified documents and forced into prostitution. Until they have paid off their

“debts,” they are practically enslaved. The going rate is currently €45,000 to €60,000;

at the Prater in Vienna this means 2000 customers. There are additionally exorbitant

costs of up to €3,500 per month for rent and clothing.

Blessing has brought the martyrdom behind her, but she still shakes when she

speaks of it. She was sold to Europe and after eight months as a forced prostitute

she was deported back to Nigeria. We meet her in Benin City, a city in southern

Nigeria with streets of red dust and low houses. Most victims of female trafficking

from Nigeria come from this city or the surrounding areas. She is very petite and is so

happy about the clothes we brought along that she falls around our necks to hug us

multiple times. “A family friend approached my parents about whether I wanted to go

to Europe,” she says. “He promised me a study spot in Italy.”

“It’s as if we were animals”

It was clear that the trip would not take place through legal channels. There are no

visas for women from Nigeria who want to work or study in Europe. Blessing had to

swear to a voodoo priest that she would never divulge those who had brought her to

Europe. Then she began a trip through hell: the Sahara. Since entry into Europe by

plane has become more difficult due to tighter controls, increasing numbers of

trafficking victims arrive via land and sea. They have to earn their trip along the way

themselves, and are sold from one middleman to the next. Many need several

months for the trip. Blessing spent nearly two years on the way through the desert

from Nigeria to Morocco, always on the run from security forces and robbers, at the

mercy of the desert.

“We always had to walk. Once it was two weeks in one fell swoop. We always

traveled the whole night through. When we saw an Arab, we begged him for food and

water. ‘De l’eau, de l’eau’—that’s how they say it there. Some threw us fruits, as if we

were animals. Many died during these days. You don’t see anything in the desert, it’s

only desert to the horizon. You don’t know where you came from, or where you are

going. I sold my urine to a man, because there was no water. Many left with us, but

not everyone reached the destination. Many cried, because the weak ones were left

behind. We knew that they would die.”

After nearly two years of wandering, Blessing is able to cross into Spain in a boat. A

contact man immediately picks her up from the Red Cross camp: the commodity

woman has reached her destination.

According to the UN, human trafficking is the fastest growing business in the world;

some even say that it has overtaken the drug and arms trades. Four million women

and girls yearly are bought and sold for the purposes of marriage, prostitution, or

slavery. Western Europe is one of the business’s largest places for trade in the

commodity woman, where, according to Amnesty International, 500,000 girls and

women are delivered yearly. The greatest profits come from trade in forced

prostitution.

Female Traffickers from Benin City

Female trafficking from Africa to Europe is a young phenomenon: it began in the

1980s as a result of the economic crisis in Nigeria. The business is in the hand of

women, known as Madames—which breaks the pattern of victims and perpetrators,

bad men and weak women. Female traders in Benin City, Nigeria, who had

previously sold purses and gold in Italy, first noticed the opportunities to earn money

in the European sex industry. When the economy collapsed in Nigeria, they began to

import Nigerian girls to Europe. To this day, the human traffickers are women. Most

of them were previously victims themselves: after paying off their “debts,” they first

controlled the girls for another Madame, until they had enough money to buy some

themselves. In a sort of savings association of human traffickers, named Osusu,

several Madames regularly pay money into a communal pot. When 10,000 Euro

have come together, one can order a new girl. “Those who were victims themselves

are even meaner. They did not experience any mercy themselves, and they know no

mercy,” says Sister Eugenia Bonetti, who aids affected women in Italy.

The men work in the second tier: as recruiters, document fakers, transporters, and

beaters. The mafia of human traffickers is not a big, powerful organization. It is a

cluster network that is planting roots ever further afield—it is flexible and not very

noticeable. “Europe designated a very clear space for us: you do the dirty work in the

streets, or you leave again. We grasp this one chance that we have. The traffickers

as well as the girls,” a trolley tells us defensively—this is what the carriers who bring

the Madames their wares are called. “It speaks for itself that female asylum seekers

in Austria can work practically only in prostitution.” Experts estimate that today up to

100,000 female Nigerians work as forced prostitutes in Europe. They are seeking a

better life for themselves and their families or were simply sold by their relatives.

Most do not know that prostitution awaits them. And those who know are told, that

they would be able to pay off the “debts” of tens of thousands of Euros in only a few

months. “When the girls arrive and realize that they were sold to a Madame and are

subjected to her, it is a very difficult moment. When it then becomes clear that they

have to stand on the streets for hours in the nightly cold, half naked in short skirts,

they become desperate. All speak of it with tears in their eyes,” says Simona Meriano

of the counseling service Tampep, which helps prostitutes in Turin.

Voodoo Magic as Leverage

Blessing recounts: “The first evening I went on the street with the leggings and the

blouse that they had given me. Cars approached me, but I did not know what to do.

On this day I did not have any customers. The Madame became angry and yelled.

Beatings followed. I found no escape; I did not have any clear thoughts. ‘The others

are working and you are not – what are you doing the whole time?’ she yelled. ‘Are

you sleeping on the street? How do you want to pay off the money?’ I told her that I

couldn’t do it, no one had told me, I just couldn’t! But I had to.

Then the first customers arrived. I was no longer Blessing. The person I once was

was dead. White men slept with me, gave me money, and I passed it on. Sometimes

no one came, sometimes there were five in a row. When they didn’t want to pay, I

thought: ‘God, how will I survive this?’ Sometimes they took me to a club; sometimes

they slept with me in the car. I died on the inside each time.”

The women and girls are caught in a dense net of constraints that make escape

nearly impossible. Not only is it the raw physical violence that forces them to keep

working. The traffickers keep their documents, making access to the police

impossible – if they do not accuse the perpetrators, they are deported as illegal

immigrants instead of being handled as victims. But an accusation is risky: there are

victim protection programs, but they only offer limited shelter, no guarantee for

protection, and not even the right to work. But most importantly, they cannot protect

the families. The female human traffickers have a tight network: If the victim does not

pay, the family comes under pressure - all the way to murder. The most effective

method of silencing victims, however, is the promise that all those affected have to

swear to before they leave Nigeria: a ritual in front of a voodoo priest – or Juju, as the

widespread religion from Nigeria is called.

Joana Adesuwa Reiterer can speak of this. Five years ago, this young actress from

Benin City followed her then husband, a Nigerian with Austrian citizenship, to Austria.

He had told her that he owned a restaurant chain in Austria. “But slowly I began to

notice that my ex-husband was a human trafficker,” Joana says. “He brought young

Nigerian girls to Europe with falsified documents and sold them into prostitution.”

Joana’s role was to be the pimp, for she knew the business from the inside. Joana

could flee and fought her way up: she completed several courses of study, married,

and today is a successful actress in Vienna. Most importantly, she founded the “Exit

Association” to help victims of female human trafficking in Vienna and to provide

valuable information. She explains how her husband described the measures of force

to be used against the prostitutes to her:

“My ex-husband promised the telephone number of a man who would physically

threaten the girls when they did not pay or listen. One could also tell them that they

were here illegally and had no documents, and that they would turn them over to the

police, who would put them in jail and deport them. Or one could keep them in check

with Juju magic: this was the most effective. ‘Take this powder and tell them that

clippings of all the girls’ fingernails, hair, and pubic hair are in it. Before the trip they

had to go to a Juju Priest in Nigeria and swear that they would do every type of work

and pay the money. Put the powder in your hand and threaten to blow it into the air

and to say a curse. Then they will control each other out of fear: because in the end

all would be affected.’”

Threats Become Reality

In Benin City we search out a Juju priest who is involved in the trafficking of women.

Dr. Baba is almost two meters tall; he wears yellow pants and nothing else. His huge,

naked stomach shakes when he laughs, which he does often and with joy. Baba is a

high-ranking Juju priest, an “elephant.” Juju is a secret; one does not speak about the

rituals with outsiders. But Dr. Baba got so carried away by bragging about his powers

that he recounts the ritual that victims of female trafficking have to undergo: “the girls

that are brought to Europe to work come before they leave and make a swear during

a ritual in a shrine. I take fingernails, hair, pubic hair, underarm hair, and menstrual

blood for the ritual. They swear on it that they will pay and how much. If one does not

pay, then she will get sick, crazy, or addicted to drugs,” the Juju man explains. He

straightens up to his full height and rolls his bloodshot eyes. He looks intimidating in

such moments. Psychogenic drugs and alcohol are involved in the rituals – this

seems to strengthen the impression left on the victims. He regularly visits his

“daughters” in Europe, Dr. Baba says – as a spirit. This is how he can control them.

The threats become reality for the victims: relatives often die when they refuse

prostitution, a psychologist from Naptip, the Nigerian State Agency against human

trafficking, tells us. More often, however, the women themselves are affected: they

believe in the swear and fall victim to delusions. The Juju priests are an important

part of the women’s trafficking mafia. But they are still not prosecuted: “as an official I

know that I should prosecute them,” says the psychologist. “But as an African I

believe in the magic.”

Racists Who Help Themselves

The root of the traffic in women lays in the European the market. The German

prostitution union Hydra estimates that every third man regularly uses prostitution

services. In Vienna alone, 15,000 johns daily visit prostitutes, the Cedaw Report on

Women’s Rights estimates. Since fewer western European women now work in

prostitution, the demand is met by women from poorer countries –when necessary,

with force. One of the johns is Gregor. We arrange a meeting near the Prater and

meet an average man: Gregor is wearing a sports coat over jeans, his short hair is

tending towards baldness, and his shoes shine expensively. He has a demanding

job, a trendy car, and a life partner at home who knows nothing of his hobby: since

his time in an elite Viennese high school he has helped himself to the streetwalkers.

He knows the stories of the Nigerian girls on the street corners. He takes them

anyway.

Do the johns know what they are doing – and what do they do, when they notice that

they are dealing with forced prostitutes? “Should I be honest? At that moment you

don’t care,” Gregor openly says. African prostitutes, he explains, fill a market niche:

“They are always cheaper than the others. This must hearken back to slavery.”

African women also fulfill the desire for the exotic—and frighteningly often it is racists

who take advantage of their services. The johns usually do not care if the prostitutes

do the work voluntarily. Nineteen johns respond to a question in an Internet forum for

johns. All assume that forced prostitution exists in Vienna. But only one of the 19

says that he would do something if he had a concrete suspicion of the use of force.

African men and women drive the trafficking of women from Africa to Europe – but

the responsibility lies in Europe. Here, there is not just the market: the justice system

also plays into the hands of the traffickers. The economic situation in Nigeria – for

which Europe is not blameless – forces a member of almost every family to emigrate.

Because it is impossible to receive a work visa, the only path to Europe lies in illegal

channels. The traffickers can present themselves as helpers to the victims’ families.

Thanks to the corruption in the European embassies, falsified visas are now almost

the only way to enter Europe. Austria therefore became a sort of hub for human

traffickers Nigerian women: the Austrian Consul in Lagos was convicted in 2006,

because it was shown that he had irregularly handed out nearly 700 visas. Money

had not played a role. Human traffickers in Nigeria, however, tell us of a veritable

parallel embassy in which Austrian visas could be bought for fixed prices.

Small Steps of 30 Euros

If a woman has been dragged to Europe, the traffickers send her to the Office of

Asylum with a fake story, for asylum seekers may not take normal jobs here – but

can work legally as prostitutes. For the length of the asylum process the women can

therefore be exploited without fear of prosecution by the authorities. After three to

four years they are then deported. The human traffickers import their wares. The

state exports them again, when they are leached out.

Victims of human trafficking do have the right to victim protection – but only when

their statements add to a case against a trafficker. This risk is too high for most of the

afflicted. “No victim protection program in the world can protect the families at home,”

an official explains to us. This ties the police’s hands: “Only victims can deliver

evidence. But willingness to cooperate among victims is virtually nonexistent,” says

Gerhard Joszt from the Federal Police.

Most trafficking victims who come in contact with the police are therefore simply

deported, frequently still in their work clothes. In addition, the police are often not

prepared to recognize victims of human trafficking – or do not want to. When Joana

Reiterer, the actress, wanted to accuse her then husband of human trafficking, the

accusation was not even accepted: she should get a divorce first, the official on duty

told her.

A tour through all the institutions that deal with those afflicted by trafficking in women

shows that there are no simple solutions. The African prostitutes on the side of the

street are not only victims of a crime: the large-scale disavowals of our global society

lead to their exploitation—oppression of women, global economic disequilibria, and

racism.

In the brothel and hourly hotel near the Prater it is now five o’clock in the morning,

and Joy awakes from her cramped position. The Madame claps her hands, the girls

on the leather couches yawn and stand up. They grab their jackets and bags and

leave the brothel with linked arms. Outside it is already getting light, the girls walk

down the street and wave at cars: it is the last chance to earn a little money on this

day. A car with three drunken passengers stops; they negotiate for a long time. The

three take two girls for fifty Euros. Joy and another one immediately get in the car.

Joy’s request for asylum was denied; in the meantime she is in Austria illegally and

works with her colleague’s time card. She has been paying off her debts for two

years. Soon the police will probably receive a tip, and Joy will be deported. In the

meantime, she is still hopeful and keeps working to buy her freedom, customer by

customer, in small steps of 30 Euros.

Authors:

Mary Kreutzer is a political scientist and journalist specializing in women's rights, development politics, and refugees. Her work has been recognized with the Eduard Ploier Radio Award of the Austrian Board of Education. She is chairwoman of the

Association for Emancipatory Development Cooperation (LeEZA), which organizes projects for women in Iraq and Turkey, and editor of the human rights magazine liga from the Austrian League of Human Rights.

Corinna Milborn is a political scientist, author and journalist in Vienna. With Waris Dirie, she has co-authored the book Schmerzenskinder (published in English as Desert Children, 2007). In her work as moderator of the Austrian television show Club 2, editor of the Austrian weekly magazine Format, and editor-in-chief of the human rights magazine liga, she has tackled the subjects of globalization, human rights and migration. In 2006, her book Gestürmte Festung Europa received the Bruno Kreisky Award in the category of political publications.