here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

On this point there is a strong agreement on the points of view of the socialoperators, whether of a lay type or of religious inspiration. Faith and liturgy seemto have a very important role in accompanying the victims of Nigerian origintowards liberation. Not only do they “dip into the same imaginary symbol andritual” - as also recognised by a psychologist of lay orientation - but theycontribute to restore the sense of belonging to a “new family”, and cancel thesolitude experienced and the crisis of identity of the woman, which appear at themoment that the important links to their own community of origin seem to be less.For this reason the idea of a “counter-rite”, that came out of an interview as apossible prospective to liberate the woman from the belief in wodoo, seems to bereductive. The operators appear to concur on the fact that it is the experience livedand shared by faith to un-snare the mechanism of blind obedience to the pact.According to the testimony of a religious person who for many years operatesin support of Nigerian victims: “The mechanism, [of exiting the logic of wodoo,Ed.] starts when they realise, as is said, that God is stronger than wodoo. Thesecond element which should start is that they feel loved by God (…) because thiselement of their spirituality is so strong that it is impossible to cancel it and verymuch affects their choices” (Caritas Servizio Migranti - Turin).A religious operator observes that for the Nigerian women do not considerCatholicism as the westerns: “What is important is the concept of good; he whodoes good, cannot be badly paid”; the women, even those that do not pray, “havesolid principles tied to tradition and to the culture of origin: they have morals, arevery severe, even with us nuns” (Caritas - Udine).Besides the psychological dimension, the operators emphasise also in this phasethe difficulty to collect reliable and circumstantial elements on the stories, ties, andaspirations of the victims, to not speak about the news useful to sustain a penalcomplaint to the persons who exploited them. The difficulty to reconstruct the realidentity and name of the exploiters, the code of silence attitude sometimes on thepart of the victims, the fact that often at the time of the complaint the circumstancesof the exploitation have changed (possibly because the madam has alreadyescaped): are all situations that can prolong or make investigations useless andlengthen the time to obtain the permission to stay.Obligation to denounce or only adhesion to the social project?Even if in some geographical areas (for example, Naples, Caserta, Rimini) theconceding of a permission to stay is frequent for reasons of social protection,through the paths, without complaint, the most widely used practise is that whichsees the complaint as a “master way” to obtain a benefit.It should be noted that the tie to the existence of filing a report, as a condition toaccede to the social protection and integration programme, is significantly decisiveon matters of overcoming the experience. The path which passes through filing acomplaint is longer, complex, risky, and sometimes lived by the woman as animposition and a violence. Under the psychological profile, it is a painful job toreview her own experience and a complex attempt, which does not always produce