Literary Art as Countercheck to Women Trafficking: An Explication of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Trafficked and Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters Street

Abstract

Trafficking has been described as all activities that entail the conveyance, sheltering and trade in humans within or across national and international boundaries through deceit, kidnap, or other forceful means with the intent of engaging victims in forced services or labor. Trafficking, particularly of women and children, is considered by the international community a fast-growing global avarice. Dominant features of the trafficking trade include: domestic servitude and prostitution which is different in comparison to the context of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. This study takes on prostitution in trafficking, engaging the inherent potential and the existing influence of the literary writer to redefine and reposition the society. This is done by examining portrayals of character-types, development of the plot and depths of the thematic preoccupation and literary elements which have contributed immensely to the re-definition of Africa in Africa, and Africa before the international community. This paper employs Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Trafficked and Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, novels that thematically dwell on this global concern. It critically engages national and international postures in examining dimensions of trafficking like industry and cartel, prostitution as a vocation for the trafficked, portrayals of the stakeholders, portrayals of the victims, value systems that promote the desire of young women to live and earn money abroad, and psychological, physiological, and sociological import of being trafficked and serving as a sex-slave. Trafficked and On Black Sisters' Street are Nigerian literary templates that serve as deterrence for the class of women this new tool of trade targets.