Informations about "Commodity Woman"

Joy, age 19, rents her body for 10 Euros in Vienna. She owes 45,000 Euros to the slave trade mafia. Grace, age 23, refused to be pulled into prostitution. As a result, her brother was shot. Florence, also 23, trudged through the desert for months–only to end up alongside an arterial road. These are but three of ten thousends of Nigerian women working the streets of Europe in forced prostitution. Ordered, sold, forsaken.

Mary Kreutzer and Corinna Milborn reveal many such fates in their comprehensive account of woman trafficking. Aided by a victim counselor from Nigeria, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, the authors present the stories of African women forced into prostitution in London, Frankfurt, Vienna and Turin. Their research has led them all the way to Lagos and into Nigerian villages where young women are lured to Europe with false promises, and entire families depend on the allowance they send. In risky undercover research and interviews with slave traders, the authors shed light on the methods of woman traffickers, the involvement of the police and other authorities, and the European customers.

This is an absorbing and sensitive report of exploitation, racism and the world's largest criminal industry.

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 League of Emancipatory Development Cooperatives (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 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.

Table of contents

• • Introduction

  • On the trails of modern slavery

  • Forced prostition of Africans in Europe

  • The free market and the woman commodity

  • Nigeria – from voodoo to financial collapse

  • Through hell and into the promised land: paths to Europe

  • The state as pimp?

  • An end to exploitation? Refusing, backing out, and being deported

  • Afterword: how can the female slave trade from Africa be stopped?

  • Acknowledgements

  • Selected bibliography

The following women and girls tell their stories in this book. All are from Benin City in Nigeria:

Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, 27, married her great love in Nigeria and moved to Vienna with her husband. There she was confronted with the question: is her husband a slave trader?

Lucy, 24, met acustomer in Vienna who fell in love with her and wants to help her.

Florence, 23, walked through the desert in order to find a better life. She now works an arterial road in a Spanish tourist area.

Linda, 21, wants to quit prostitution. The slave traders pressured her father in Nigeria. Her application for refugee status has been turned down.

Grace, 23, a former handball player, was sold into prostitution and sent to Europe. She refused, and is hiding from the slave traders.

Maria, 19, was sold to Europe at age 13. We are introduced to her at a counseling center, pregnant against her will. The authorities have confiscated her passport without comment. She wants to go to her “father” in London.

Loveth, 35, also walked through the desert and was sold to Spain. She became pregnant on the way. Now her two children live in Spain while she herself has been deported.We are introduced to her atawomen's support center in Lagos, Nigeria.

Blessing, 26, was lured from her village and across the Sahara. She ended up in forced prostitution in an Italian coast town.

After escaping from herwedlock with Tony, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer has pursued various vocational training. She founded the association “Exit” (www.ngo-exit.com), which counsels victims of woman trafficking. Meanwhile, she has resumed acting work and published her autobiographical novel African Mermaidin 2008.

Lucy was unable to continue her relationship with the customer who had fallen in love with her. She now works the streets of Vienna and Innsbruck, and has turned down a lawyer's offer to testify against her traffickers.

Florence still works as aprostitute in Torremolinos, near Málaga. She keeps loose contact to a women's group. Out of fear for her family, she does not want to quit prostitution until she has paid the demanded sum to the slave traders.

Linda has filed an appeal in her asylum procedure, and has left Vienna in favor of another city. She continues to conceal her true story from the authorities because she fears for her family, who is being threatened by the slave traders. We do not know whether Linda will be compelled to return to prostitution.

Grace, who has refused to go into forced prostitution, is being pursued by slave traders. They are also pressuring her sister in Nigeria. She has told her true story to the authorities and is waiting for a decision in her asylum process. Her greatest desire is to protect her family and get as far away as possible from Vienna.

Maria, who was sold to Europe at the age of 13, has lost her baby. After a few days' thought, she decided not to tell her story. She still has no passport and cannot leave the foreign country in which she now lives. We do not know whether she wasable to reach her “father” in London, and whether she must work again.

We no longer have contact with Loveth. Her plans fluctuated – at one point, she wanted to return to Libya in order to work in prostitution there; at another point, she wanted to go home to her mother. We hope she is getting the protection and psychological help that she needs.

Blessing, who was deported from Italy, lives in Benin City. She has trained as a caterer and wants to found a small catering company. You can help her achieve her goal by donating. Further information can be found at www.ngo-exit.com