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Not all madams have a central role: analysis of a Nigerian sex trafficking network

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Abstract

This article applies social network analysis to a case study to analyze the role of madams in an Nigerian sex trafficking network. Using relational data on telephone conversations, the main centrality measures are calculated. They are interrelated with the roles of all the members of the network. The analysis confirms the importance of madams already highlighted by many academics, but surprisingly it also shows that not all madams are equally central in terms of their brokerage positions. Indeed, two different groups of madams are identified according to their betweenness centrality, which is the measure that best reveals the strategic positioning of the nodes within a network. The content analysis and description of the madams’ ego networks demonstrate that the main requirements for occupying a brokerage role are (i) being able to operate also outside Italian borders, and (ii) being at the same time part of relational systems involving “transnational” people whose action extends beyond national borders.

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Notes

  1. According to the UNODC (2010:16), the value of the market associated to sex trafficking in Europe is about three billion dollars every year. Specific data about the earnings of the Nigerian traffickers are not available, but a lot of money transfers have been registered from Europe to Nigeria (especially to the Edo State) (UNODC/UNICRI 2003).

  2. Unlike other crimes in which men are mostly the offenders, in sex trafficking women have a central role in the crime-commission. Indeed, they are able to attract a larger number of potential victims of sexual exploitation (UNODC 2010; Siegel and De Blank 2010).

  3. In general, the loan amounts to 50,000–60,000 euros. It is accepted by the victim and by her family because they do not have a clear idea of what this amount of money signifies (Prina 2003).

  4. There are different kinds of voodoo ritual. In general, they are performed using hair, pubic hair and nails of the victims, which are wrapped in paper together with organic material from animals or vegetable extracts (Prina 2003).

  5. The force of these rituals derives from the magic-religious belief widespread in Nigeria that if the pledges are not observed the victims may fall ill, die or something evil may happen. As van Dijk writes (2001:565), “‘Voodoo’ was defined as an essential element in how the system was operated by women traders and traffickers”.

  6. What they do not know are the working conditions (management of time and money, restricted freedom of movement, subjection to the madam and so on) (Aghatise 2001).

  7. Three main types of journey can be identified (Prina 2003): an air journey whose direct destination is a Western Europe country (Paris, London, Amsterdam, and so on) and then arrival in Italy by train or car; an air journey with stopovers in Eastern Europe (Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Turkey, and so on); and an overland journey.

  8. 72 % of African victims detected by law enforcement in Italy from 2003 to 2007 were Nigerian (UNODC 2009b:42) and Nigerian nationality is the most frequent among victims assisted in Italy.

  9. The important implications of this method in terms of law enforcement have been underlined by many authors (among others, van der Hulst 2008; Mclllwain 1999; Sparrow 1991a). They principally concern the possibility of understanding how the criminal network functions.

  10. The analysis has been performed using Ucinet 6 software (Borgatti et al. 2002).

  11. This study has analyzed only the telephone calls made by the actors, which have been considered the best data to understand the relationships between the actors and their centrality. Indeed, telephone represents the main communication medium which has been used also to plan the physical encounters.

  12. Data have been considered as symmetric values because in many cases it was not possible to identify the direction of the telephone calls.

  13. The graphical representations have been produced using the Net Draw program (Borgatti 2002).

  14. In particular, these studies (Morselli 2010; Calderoni 2011) have analyzed the relation between centrality measures and vulnerability of the actors during law enforcement investigations. They show that the people who seem to have the most central role in the network are often not the most important ones: they are involved in numerous conversations and hence have a higher probability of being wiretapped and arrested, but this does not reflect their status within the network.

  15. The density by group associated with gender (males 34; females 52) shows that females register the highest percentage of density. In particular, they have 2.3 % of the possible ties with the males and 5 % of the possible ties with the females. Considering nationality (not specified 8; Nigerian 73; Italian 5), the Nigerians have 3.6 % of the possible ties with their co-nationals, while the Italians and the people whose nationality was not stated are less present in the telephone calls. However, non-Nigerians register their highest percentages (respectively 2.5 % and 1.4 %) with Nigerians. This means that the Nigerians and the women were at the centre of the communication flows.

  16. If the N16 and N24 nodes are excluded from the analysis, the value of R2 decreases to 0.2884, showing a very low correlation.

  17. Some studies have shown that people with a strategic positioning in the network are likely to have lower degree and higher betweenneess centrality scores. This pattern assures them control over the information and the activities while at the same time being at less risk of detection (Baker and Faulkner 1993; Morselli 2009a and b; Morselli 2010).

  18. The table reporting the information on all nodes is available in the Annex.

  19. In particular, a key position in the network was performed by the person responsible for control N10. As can be seen in Fig. 1, she acted as a link between two parts of the network.

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  1. Transcrime Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123, Milan, Italy

    Marina Mancuso

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Annex

Annex 1: “Foglie nere”: role and betweenness centrality normalized per node
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Mancuso, M. Not all madams have a central role: analysis of a Nigerian sex trafficking network. Trends Organ Crim 17, 66–88 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-013-9199-z

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