User:Hfmsmith/sandbox

Involvement of VoodooItalic text

To understand the psychological framework of human trafficking of young Nigerian women within the European sex industry, a theory was developed that voodoo was a way to explain imprisonment of one’s mind to prostitution. Voodoo is as a form of witchcraft that has taken a role in Nigerian human trafficking by being a crucial part of the process of manipulating women into contracts of paying off a debt for travel to Europe. Nigerian men and women began to leave in the 1990s to find work; primarily in agriculture and in the service sector. A very popular reason to do so is to help bring their families out of extreme poverty since Nigeria is rated one of the sixth poorest nations with a per capita GNP of about $280 US dollars for a population of about 133 million people. Since the late 1990s, there has been a lot of corruption when it comes to passports and visas produced within Nigeria. There is such a high demand for a visa or passport that people began producing fake passports and selling them in the market. There’s also a market in Nigeria for passports with false information, passports of another identity, and to simply place a false photograph on an original passport. With this occurring, European countries such as Norway began to deny any visas or passports from Nigeria since many of them started to come illegally.  With Nigerian passports and visas getting denied, citizens started to find different legal ways to get citizenship in foreign countries. This is where human trafficking steps in.

    According to UNESCO, Nigeria has gotten a reputation as “one of the leading African countries in human trafficking with cross-border and internal trafficking.” Human trafficking is a way to exploit women and children for cheap labor and prostitution as way to help themselves out of poverty. Nigerian human trafficking occurs both internal, within neighboring countries, and in many European countries. Human traffickers target vulnerable women and children and coach them to secretly leave their families and to lie to officials. The whole process involves a lot of manipulation and control over the people being trafficked. Most people who are human trafficked travel through railroads, boats, and other forms of under the radar and cheap transportation. Once women and children reach their destination, they are stripped of their identity and documentation. These people are then told they are forced to work until they payback their “madams”. The people who are responsible for human trafficking are known to officials by three categories; supporters, partners-in-crime, and madams. Most madams are African madams which is crucial to the process because they are able to gather the trust of the women in the system. This work of the trafficked people includes being a prostitute, maid, etc. In the year of 2004, Nigerians were the fifth largest group seeking asylum in Europe; a portion of which arrived in Europe due to human trafficking. There is little research done about the statistics of which of these are trafficked. Due to the secrecy of human trafficking, it is difficult for researchers to gather this information. It is said that Italy is one of the biggest destinations for Nigerian trafficking victims since researchers were able to discover 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes.

Boko Haram's Effect on Nigeria's Economy

   Nigeria has one of the largest populations in Africa with over 200 million citizens. Its economy was booming from the oil industry in the Niger Delta, and was said to become the leading economy in Africa by 2020. Although their economy was doing well, 35 percent living in absolute poverty. Approximately 90 million Nigerians believed to live on less than one USD dollar a day. With economic insecurity, high unemployment rates, and poverty the Boko Haram was able to emerge within Nigeria as political protests. Boko Haram is a violent social group that arose, partly in response to the social and economic deprivation of Nigeria’s northeastern population. Starting out around 2008, Boko Haram has carried out attacks in order to spread their Islamic influence and defeat the westernization that began during colonialism. They were able to recruit among the youth population of Nigeria because of youth unemployment; approximately 64 million youths are unemployed with 1.6 million being underemployed. Boko Haram targets individuals who are living lifestyles believed to follow western culture, like the US or Europe. One targeted attack was on women who were attacked while attending school, leading to roughly 250 girls being kidnapped.

   The Boko Haram are responsible for roughly 10,000 deaths since 2011 and roughly 2.6 million displaced Nigerians. Nigeria’s economy suffered when attacks held by the Boko Haram began on local businesses, government buildings, and local facilities such as schools and churches. Local businesses began to migrate south as a result of being attacked or due to fear of the Boko Haram. Roughly 80 percent of the businesses in Kano had to close down due to power failure and security challenges caused by attacks. In the capital city of Borno, Maiduguri, a major market known as Market Monday was drastically hit by the Boko Haram causing over 10,000 shops to have to close down. Banks were even said to be effected by the Boko Haram’s violent attacks, and caused them to shorten their hours from eight to three hours to minimize the risk of getting hit by the Boko Haram; limiting citizens to their finances. Citizens and the government had to pay for the retribution of damages caused by the Boko Haram. This stalled the economy in the northeast region because businesses were leaving, people began to lose jobs, and there was less money going into the local economy. Foreign investors began to withdraw their money from Nigeria because of the state of conflict Nigeria is in and the degrading economy as a result of the Boko Haram; causing Nigeria to lose 1.33 trillion dollars in foreign investments. Citizens who were displaced or just seeking refuge from the Boko Haram migrated to neighboring countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, and Chad. Majority citizens migrated to the southern half of Nigeria where there are more opportunities for work, better economy, and more security. This further plays into the socioeconomic divide between the north and the south of Nigeria where the south is more financially stable from lack of conflict, government funding, and the oil industry in the Niger Delta.

Edit of Contribution 1 Draft

There is a recent pattern of Nigerian men and women migrating to neighboring countries for  political and economic reasons during the time period of early 2000s to modern day (2017). The living conditions of Nigerian citizens are poor with approximately 90 million Nigerians believed to live on less than one USD dollar a day (International Migration and National Development: The Case of Niger, Hein De. Haas, 2017). To seek better lives and opportunities, Nigerians migrate to countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, and wealthier countries including South Africa. South Africa is a favored destination for many african immigrants in general because of its booming economy since the 1990s, less well known violence, and more political freedom.South Africa’s economy has been booming since the 1990s which lead to a huge amount of increase of immigrants to their country from African countries like Nigeria. The threat of the Boko Haram in Nigeria is causing many citizens to migrate to neighboring countries such as Cameroon. Cameroon is on the eastern border of Nigeria which is where Boko Haram activity is popular, and provides easy escape for refugees to seek security in foreign land.Boko Haram is a violent social movement that arose, partly in response to the social and economic deprivation of Nigeria’s northern population. Starting out around 2008, Boko Haram has carried out attacks in order to spread their Islamic influence, and defeat the westernization the began during colonialism. Boko Haram targets individuals who are living lifestyles believe to follow western culture, like the US or Europe. One example of a targeted attack was women were attacked when trying to seek education. According to the International Organization for Migration the Boko Haram is responsible for roughly 10,000 deaths since 2011 and roughly 2.6 million Nigerians were forced to flee their homes to escape the violence (Boko Haram in Cameroon, Walter Gam, 2013). Residents of northern Nigeria began to flee to Niger, Chad, and Cameroon in search of security. Members of Boko Haram accompanied some of these migrants in order to spread their influence. Cameroon started to report attacks in that country sponsored by Boko Haram after a kidnapping of a French family in 2012 (Boko Haram in Cameroon, Walter Gam, 2013). Other countries also experienced Boko Haram attacks and began to take responsive measures. Out of fear of the Boko Haram, Cameroon closed its borders to Nigeria in 2012 which made life much harder for displaced humans because their options for a new home became even more limited since Cameroon was an easy place to seek initial refuge.

Contribution 1 Draft

There is a recent pattern of both men and women in Nigeria migrating to neighboring countries for political and economic reasons. The living conditions of Nigerian citizens are poor with approximately 90 million Nigerians believed to live below the poverty line; living on less than one dollar a day (International Migration and National Development: The Case of Niger, Hein De. Haas, 2017). To seek better lives and opportunities, Nigerians migrate to countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, and wealthier countries including South Africa. South Africa’s economy has been booming since the 1990s which lead to a huge amount of increase of immigrants to their country from African countries like Nigeria. The threat of the Boko Haram in Nigeria is causing many citizens to migrate to neighboring countries such as Cameroon. The Boko Haram is a violent social movement that has deep roots in social and economic deprivation of Nigeria’s northern population. The Boko Haram has held many attacks starting in the roughly around 2008 in order to spread their Islamic influence, and defeat the westernization the began through colonialism. According to the International Organization for Migration the Boko Haram is responsible for roughly 10,000 deaths since 2011 and roughly 2.6 million Nigerians were forced to flee their homes to escape the violence (Boko Haram in Cameroon, Walter Gam, 2013). Citizens of northern Nigeria began to flee to Niger, Chad, and Cameroon in search of security. Through the migration of Nigerians, members of the Boko Haram began to migrate to neighboring countries in order to spread their influence. Cameroon started to report attacks after a kidnapping of a French family that the Boko Haram claimed (Boko Haram in Cameroon, Walter Gam, 2013). Attacks in other countries began to increase, this took a toll on governments such as Cameroon. Cameroon, out of fear of the Boko Haram, increased military power in order to close their borders to Nigeria. This led Nigerian citizens to be unable to migrate out of Boko Haram territory and into secure zones.

Article Evaluation -The article I chose to analyze was "Education in Africa" which talks about the UN involvement in schools within Africa and the quality of education the children receive. However, the article faced a western bias that assumed all schooling in Africa is labeled as underdeveloped and needing help from the UN and other NGOs. It fails to mention successful education like boarding schools in South Africa. The article starts to focus a little too much on politics and less on the characteristics of education in Africa. I think many western viewpoints are a little over represented and many local governments are underrepresented. The citations were accurate when I checked them because they went to the specific articles it referred to or a relative Wikipedia page.