here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

witnesses, social operators - agree on the fact that the information and sensitisationcampaigns of the families should be increased and organised in a more capillaryway than has been done up to now. Some victims have insisted on the opportunityof a communication through mass media.“There are many people in Nigeria that don’t know that their daughter left forEurope and died crossing from Morocco to Spain, you know many died there,many died walking from Nigeria to Morocco. Many advertisements should bemade in the newspapers, shown on TV: those who have had experience come andtalk about these things (...). They should also start with a programme on TV onItaly which talks about these things. If the people continue to hear, perhaps sooneror later the people will say stop. One thing to make the families understand thatthis promise to the pimps is false, your daughter is the victim, they hit her, theymistreat her, she does not eat, she works, gets sick, maybe they kill her. There aremany ways of dying on the street” (Interview Victim No. 4).In all these testimonies emerges the importance of a direct communication,without censure, which demonstrates, even through shock images, the moreextreme aspects of the conditions of life in which the women trafficked are obligedto live. Privileged destination of this communication should be the family and theschools.Considerations relative to the Nigerian social structure and the unequalenjoyment of the mass media in the different areas of the country bring us howeverto believe that, to have major efficacy, a direct communication to the family andthe community, through the testimony of emancipated victims of the exploitation,is required. The forms and places of this type of communication can be diverse:testimony of the women in associations and religious institutions, in schools, infamily reunions, in social moments of the community and villages.“In Nigeria one should only talk with the parents, show them the cassettes, tapethe girls who are on the street, there are girls that are knifed, hot water thrown onthem, take these photographs, show them to the parents, translate them in all thelanguages that exist in Nigeria” (Interview Victim No.7).“A meeting could be arranged for the families to make the people understandhow the situation is here, which is not easy, above all for the youth, 16, 18, 20years that come here. We have made our bad life. Now we need to pray that themothers do not let their children come here. Because now many mothers are inagreement with their children” (Interview Victim No.2).A victim chose to recount her story to the family and the community sending aletter which, with the help of her brother, was distributed to all the family. Shechose to appeal to the sense of honour of the family. She maintains that her gesturecan help other girls to not follow the same outcome.“I wrote my entire story and sent it home, they must photocopy everything anddivide it amongst the family and during reunions of the family read it, like thisthose who say «my daughter is in Italy» should be ashamed. I wrote nearly 10pages and said «when this arrives, make photocopies» the last Sunday of eachmonth there is a family reunion, all the elderly and adults come, I said “go there,count these people who are there, and leave a photocopy for each one, tell them to