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| Ilustrated by Charlie Louis |
Slavery and prostitution: from Benin City to Paris
Paris Match ||Mis à jour le
Par Pauline Delassus
Fleeing Nigeria, these women thought they would find their Eldorado in Europe. Instead, they were reduced to slavery and forced to prostitute themselves
This morning is the first morning of the rest of her miserable life. Diana* has just arrived in France. She’s 18 and marvels at the grey of Paris. She knows she was right to have left the poverty of her enormous and violent home town, Benin City, in southern Nigeria. She’s going to be a student; the woman with her has promised her this. « I promised to refund the price of my passage to Europe without knowing how much it would be and I thought that it would include the cost of my studies », explained Diana. The taxi is driving along a long avenue, boulevard Barbès, the Château-Rouge quarter, rue des Poissonniers, a little Africa where all the shops look like the one her uncle has back home.
"I didn't know how to say “20 euros a trick, 100 euros a night” "
Suddenly, her life plummeted into darkness. Diana remembers the tiny hotel room, the bolt being fastened on the door and the first French word she was to understand: prostitution. As the day dawned, her dreams collapsed. Her benefactress became the "mama", a brothel Madame who demanded 60 000 euros from her, the cost of her trip to hell. At first the mama would follow her « girl » onto the pavement, and she was the one who talked to the clients. "I didn’t know how to say “20 euros a trick, 100 euros a night”. So she translated", says Diana. The mama had two allies, an iron rod and "juju". Black magic is at the core of this booming transnational trade in human beings. A few days before they left Nigeria, the mama had taken Diana along with other girls to the house of a sorcerer, the "jujuman".
The girls are positioned in the bois de Vincennes, from sundown to 2 am© Paris Match
The ceremony includes trances, taking of potions, collecting of blood, hair and nails. The future prostitutes are convinced that they have been put under a spell: they must obey the mama to keep their families safe from harm. The sorcerer gives them each an object: a padlock wound around with string in a plastic bag and sprinkled with dried blood. The chains of modern slavery. In France, the « juju » continues: a submissiveness, invincibility and contraceptive filter. Here it is made up of twenty tablets of paracetamol and lemon juice. TheBrigade de Répression du Proxénétisme (BRP – Prostitution and procuring police) observe the hold of these traditions used for criminal purposes. Commissaire divisionnaire Jean-Paul Mégret explains: "All the mama needs to do is mention the “juju” and the girls enter into a state of panic and don’t dare give evidence." In the Paris region, there are around ten of these slavery networks, organised in Nigeria by ultraviolent armed gangs inspired by the Crips of Los Angeles. They can be recognised by the colour of their clothes and spend their time waging territorial wars. Most of their victims are recruited in the countryside around Benin City. They are young, no more than 20, which guarantees their submissiveness. Henchmen are in charge of beating up the parents of the more rebellious girls, and even of executing them. Terror bears its fruits, which are completely rotten because they are steeped in "juju".
The traffickers dress them in white when they cross the Mediterranean to show the couriers their "value"
The BRP’s fifty men recently dismantled one of these networks: the Authentic Sisters. In the same way as the others, it was organised around a pyramid scheme that men manage from Nigeria. To manage the traffic in Paris, they send the mamas, former prostitutes who have paid off their debts and who, from being victims, have become torturers. Diana went to her fate aboard an Air France flight, but most Nigerian girls take the traditional routes of illegal migrants. The new slave trade follows the trajectory of a new triangular trade, from West Africa to Europe, via the Maghreb. « The phenomenon is recent and extensive, explains Guillaume Lardanchet of the association Hors la Rue. Some of them are minors, sometimes between 12 and 14, but they have forged identification as adults. » Cars or coaches to Libya, a stop in Tripoli, a boat to Italy. On board, they are given pale coloured clothes to differentiate them from the other migrants and show their « value » to the couriers who put them in the middle of the boats so that they cannot fall overboard...
Two clients wait between the lined-up vans while a prostitute is making a show© Paris Match
The precious goods then wait in the camps, before being taken onto the pavements. Like Diana, they « work » both during the day and at night. The Eldorado they were promised is the Goutte d’Or, near the Château-Rouge metro-station, « where all the clients are African », says Diana. After that, according to the ups and downs of the trade, they are taken to the bois de Vincennes, « where all the men are white ». Their sector is easy to find in a poorly lit alleyway. Here, at night, around forty white vans are parked in a line, with enough space between them for clients to park. « Come on baby! 20 euros, 20 euros… » you can hear incessantly. Drivers slow down, stop or go on to the next one. In the front cab areas, the girls light oil lamps or candles, huge coloured candles whose flames keep them warm. Their childish profiles are backlit; you can see their sparkly make-up, the strass of their bras, which are the only piece of clothing they wear. Those of them who are naked wear a cross around their necks, a left-over from the Christian culture of their home country, Nigeria. For a van, a temporary haven that two or three of them share, and where they receive the clients in the back, 1 000 euros must go to the mamas. The youngest who are not yet completely formed wear jeans and trainers like high school kids and walk up and down along the side of the road.
Clients park between the lined-up vans. Some prostitutes get out of their vans to negotiate© Paris Match
« In that case, we go into the bushes, says Diana. Clients’ cars are too dangerous. » Every ten days, Diana had to pay her mama 1 000 euros. Over three years, she « paid her back » 30 000 euros, without seeing a centime of it for herself. In certain networks the girls pay into a common fund, used for medical care, on condition that they respect the rules: loyalty to the group, the obedience of novices towards their elders, refunding of the debt and silence. But when a client broke her finger, Diana couldn’t be treated in a hospital. « If they get pregnant, the mamas do the abortions, they never see a doctor », adds commissaire Jean-Paul Mégret. Before adding, disgustedly: « Soliciting is a major challenge for us. I wonder who the men who solicit the girls are… There is no way they can’t be aware of the fact that they are taking part in the exploitation of human beings. » The law passed on 6th April, to penalise the client, should, deems Mégret, provide new weapons: « We are going to take measures which will have an effect on visible prostitution in the street. That of the Nigerian girls. The law has been passed, and we are going to apply it. » Police unions wonder: « How? Who is going to book the clients? »
In France, a recent law will soon punish the clients© Paris Match
Stanislas Gaudon, of the Alliance police union, is puzzled: « We are going to have to catch the client in the act, which means plain-clothes surveillance… That is going to pose a question of personnel. Maybe new units should be set up. » For Unsa, the same concern. General secretary Philippe Capon insists on the fact that it will be: « An additional mission for the police. » For the time being, the police appear to be absent from the bois de Vincennes. During the five nights we spent preparing the report, we never saw one. The Nigerian prostitutes have only one form of relief, from the associations which go around the woods of Paris and along the by-passes to bring them coffee, biscuits and condoms. They are the ones who inform the police when there are underage girls. In Vincennes, the van girls know the voluntary workers of « Aux Captifs, la libération », whose aim is to create a link with them in order to help them. Jean-Marc Oswald, their spokesman, recognises that the new law is « trying to make things clearer by setting a standard in order to change mentalities ».
Diana is saved. She is off to the association Equipes d’action contre le proxénétisme (Action teams against procuring), in the Les Halles quarter© D.R.
Some measures are positive if they are applied: making it easier to get a resident permit or benefit from initiatives in favour of integration. But there is a risk is that these small measures will hide political and collective passive attitudes ». Yves Charpenel, President of the Fondation Scelles and public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, stresses: « In Sweden, where this law is applied, the market is dead for pimps and the networks have lost 50 % of their turnover. We must make France inhospitable for this sort of traffic, particularly as there is collusion between crime, terrorism and prostitution. » Diana, one of the first girls to have managed to get out, doesn’t really know what to think of it. After four years of slavery, she is no longer a prostitute and at the age of 25, she is an elder for her former sisters-in-the-same boat. Even if she has to take tranquilizers to diminish the anxiety of the « juju » which almost made her go mad. She was taken into a hostel thanks to the « Equipes d’action contre le proxénétisme » association, whose president, Elda Carly, declared: « This law will reinforce the victim status of prostitutes like Diana, but we need more means and more policemen. » This smiling woman is Diana’s fairy godmother, and with her help, the young woman hopes to be able to get legal documentation and work, maybe in a restaurant. « I don’t want to go back to Nigeria. I love France. »
*The name has been changed
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