here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

A feminine managementIn analysing the type of relations which are installed between the victim and theexploiters, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that in the major number of casesa relation between women is concretised on a daily level. The commondenominator of the female exploiter and victim, in fact, results in being animportant element to understand the mechanisms that concern the management ofNigerian prostitution in Italy.The hub of prostitution exploitation for the Nigerian women is the femalefigure of the madam: to her the direct management of the victims is given.The madam who resides in Italy maintains a direct and preferential link to herfemale homologue figure in Nigeria (the so-called Nigerian madam, oftenbelonging to the same extended family) who has a fundamental role to guaranteethe link of subordination deriving from the magic-religious pact and in thesubjection of the family of the woman immigrant.“A. calls her mother in Nigeria, she greets her and asks her how she is. Thenthe mother tells her that she went to see where the girl is that should be sent. A.replies that they had said that she left Nigeria today. A. asks her mother if she cansend her something to stop the girls from escaping ”.“A. tells her mother that her girls are not working and therefore she shouldsend her something to make them work and adds she should also send somethingto keep the girls. The mother asks if she has to send her again that thing that shehad sent last time. A. replies yes, and asks her to go also to that place to get advicefrom a “witch doctor”, something for the girls and something for her. The motherof A. replies that you can’t ask these things in the place where she goes to themeetings as the parents of some of the girls are there and therefore would come toknow that she is subjecting them to wodoo…she continues to ask the mother forsomething to put in the food to give to the girls so that they are subjected to her. A.reminds her to do the rite every morning so that the police will keep away ”.“T. calls Nigeria and speaks with her mother who tells her that they have notsent her the powder to put in the food, but another that you should pass over thehead of the girl which will stop her from running away it is something you do sothat the police don’t catch her.” (Transcription of a telephone intercept, criminalproceeding, Turin - 2001).Normally the women trafficked live in the house of the madam, or however in ahouse controlled indirectly by her 38 , and they are instructed by her on how tobehave at work. She will collect the profits of the prostitution activity daily, orperiodically.It is interesting to note how, according to the opinion of different operators ofthe police, there does not seem to be a real “duty to earn” daily 39 : the madam in factmay tolerate moments of minor earning or however even modest earnings, as long38This is one of the many functions of the so-called controller, which we will deal with more in the nextChapter.39The figures on average are around 50 Euros per day and therefore about 500 every ten days.