Sex, Lies and Black Magic

Channel 4's Unreported World last evening broadcast this about how human traffickers are using black magic to coerce and trap Nigerian women into a life of prostitution in Europe. I am informed via Twitter by Krishnan Guru Murthy, @krishgm, a news anchor at the channel, that the Unreported World programme is the only show on 4oD (4 on Demand) that is not geo-blocked.

krishgm @anengiyefa yes it's the only show on 4OD not geoblocked

about 2 hours ago via web in reply to anengiyefa

Follow the link and watch the film, it is available for 29 days yet. Click here to see it.

Basically, the film shows Nigerian women who are made to swear an oath of loyalty to their traffickers in an elaborate ritual that compels them to pay back extortionate sums of money. They feel bound by this oath and fear that should they break it, they will be cursed. It is suggested that as many as 20,000 Nigerian women work as prostitutes on the streets of Italy.

I think that the film provides valuable insight into a really important subject, but the attempt by the film's makers to blame this heinous activity on indigenous African spiritual tradition, misses the point completely and perhaps also plays into culturally oppressive stereotypes. Prostitution in Europe by African women is nothing to do with indigenous African cultural tradition. The real reasons for it are poverty, coupled with the demand in Europe for prostitutes.

There are prostitutes working in Western Europe who come from Russia, Moldova, Belarus and the Ukraine and as far afield as the Philippines and Vietnam. But to suggest that all of those women too have been subjected to an oath of loyalty by a babalawo (witch doctor) would clearly be nonsensical. The motive for all of these women, yes, including those from Nigeria, is money, the search for a better life and for many, the ability to support the families they leave behind in their home countries.

And while this may be their original intention, I did not see from the film that the lives of the families the women left behind in Nigeria were improved in anyway at all, since the families seemed still to be living in abject poverty, despite the fact that they had relatives working abroad.

The truth is that all over the world, poor people are being taken advantage of by the wealthy, through a globalised system of capitalism, which forces people to sell their souls in order to put food on the table. In Bangladesh, Afghanistan and others, it is normal for poor families to put to work children as young as 7 years of age, to contribute to the family income. In parts of Africa, out of poverty, some mothers are forced to sell their own children into slavery. This is the harsh reality for the poor in today's world.

I think that the makers of the film, rather than trying to blame African spirituality for prostitution in Europe, should have taken the time to explore the true causes of the problem. It is not surprising, nor is it unreasonable that the particular manifestation of this misfortune in Edo State in Nigeria, would be articulated in a characteristic and localised form, i.e., through a distortion of juju, which in fact is a part of the local traditions of the people.

See also Human Trafficking, the Nigerian Connection

At a Crossroads

I know of no one who has been faced with the situation that I am currently faced with and am therefore not able to draw from any other person's experiences in the very important choices that I am soon going to have to make.

The background to this is from a few years ago when intervention action was taken by my professional regulatory body into a firm at which I was a partner. The practice was closed down and all of the firm's partners were suspended from further practise. I have previously written about this on this blog here. Following the intervention, I alone of all the firm's former partners applied for the reinstatement of my practising certificate. My certificate was reinstated, but with the condition that I could not practise as a partner and was allowed to practise only in employment as an assistant, and in an employment for which the regulatory body had given prior approval, as there were supervisory and support requirements to be met by the prospective employer.

I was able to return to practise even while the regulatory body's investigations into the affairs of the now defunct firm were still in progress. Perhaps it was quite clear to the regulatory body that none of the factors which gave rise to the intervention into that firm were attributable to me personally, but instead to my former partners. And I enjoyed the staunch backing of my former boss, who stood by me and supported my application to return to practise.

The problem now is that I left the employ of my former boss, having entered into a fee-sharing arrangement with a different firm. By that arrangement, the firm purported to be satisfying the requirement for support and supervision imposed on my practising certificate, when in fact I was doing my own work. Suffice it to say that after a couple of months, the relationship with that firm too broke down. I found them crude, onerous and overbearing and thought of them as undeserving of my competence.

I cannot now return to my former boss, because he too has since run into difficulties with the regulatory body. So I am left high and dry, as I find that not many firms will accept me with such a cumbersome condition attached to my practising certificate. The reason is simple: the partners at those firms render themselves liable to disciplinary action for failure to supervise, in the event that something goes wrong; and this is not to mention the certain increase in their professional indemnity insurance premium as soon as the insurers become aware of my professional history. It is not surprising then that I have received the cold shoulder at the doors on which I have knocked.

So what are the choices? Well, I can either wait on the unemployment line until September when the disciplinary proceedings will be finalised, without an inkling as to the likely outcome of those proceedings; or I can consider making a clean break from the profession altogether and move in a completely different direction. The new academic session begins in September, so one must act promptly if one is to take advantage of it.

The fact of the matter is that whatever the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings, the intervention into my former firm (and the reasons thereof), will always be recorded against me. It is sufficient merely to state in one's application that one was a partner at a firm that was intervened, for professional indemnity insurance premiums to quadruple. And it is professional misconduct not to disclose this in your insurance application. It is irrelevant that I was not directly responsible.

Even if the conditions are removed from my practising certificate after the disciplinary proceedings, I shall be totally unable to afford to pay all of the regulatory body's costs for bringing those disciplinary proceedings against me, pay the likely financial penalty to be imposed by the disciplinary tribunal and then thereafter, also pay for the insurance needed to enter into practice on my own. Any prospective employers too will be wary of the potential increase in their insurance liability if they were to employ me.

All in all, forging ahead in the same direction portends a very rough time ahead, which makes the case for a career change. I am now considering going back to college or university to retrain. This seems drastic, I know, but my view is that some situations require radical action, and this is one of those situations. I am not sure that I am willing to spend the remainder of my career encumbered with responsibility for the acts of others, my former partners, who in any event are themselves no longer interested in practising. Incidentally, one of them, the major culprit, fled the jurisdiction with the proceeds of his deeds, and the latest I heard of him is that he lost his bid to be elected to the Nigerian Senate..