Rather surprisingly, the topic of Nigerian corruption can be discussed without embarrassment, ever since Ross Kemp discreetly raised the issue with his Nigerian hosts, to be met with gales of laughter, showing that they were proud of their distinction as the most corrupt people on earth.
So when we hear about an official bureau called AINSCA (All India Nigerian Students and Community Association), it doesn't exactly get us sitting properly in church. Sure enough, investigation by the BBC's 'Africa Eye' team reveals that it is headed by a noted sex-trafficker, Eddie, who tempts poor Kenyan women to work in Delhi for good money and the chance to own property.
The middle half of this video simply chronicles the miserable journey of one particular girl, Grace, who volunteers to work undercover, and we could be looking at anywhere on earth where the oldest profession is practised. The cynical 'modern' slavery routine is replicated in dreary detail. Her passport is confiscated (natch!) and she is then declared to be deep in debt, because of the cost of her flight (actually bought via a stolen credit-card, effectively for nothing), and that she must pay many thousand rupees to regain the passport and freedom, having to pleasure nine or ten men a day ("Even sitting down is a problem"), and then become a madam herself, to earn the privilege. Nothing very notable there, and it is not clear what the film is trying to prove.
Meanwhile they don't quite explain why a desperate girl in Kenya would get herself into horrendous debt, so she can fly all the way to India, to service the needs of Nigerians studying in the sub-continent. The basic dynamics of the situation - what we now call the Push/Pull - remain unexplained to the end.
So when we hear about an official bureau called AINSCA (All India Nigerian Students and Community Association), it doesn't exactly get us sitting properly in church. Sure enough, investigation by the BBC's 'Africa Eye' team reveals that it is headed by a noted sex-trafficker, Eddie, who tempts poor Kenyan women to work in Delhi for good money and the chance to own property.
The middle half of this video simply chronicles the miserable journey of one particular girl, Grace, who volunteers to work undercover, and we could be looking at anywhere on earth where the oldest profession is practised. The cynical 'modern' slavery routine is replicated in dreary detail. Her passport is confiscated (natch!) and she is then declared to be deep in debt, because of the cost of her flight (actually bought via a stolen credit-card, effectively for nothing), and that she must pay many thousand rupees to regain the passport and freedom, having to pleasure nine or ten men a day ("Even sitting down is a problem"), and then become a madam herself, to earn the privilege. Nothing very notable there, and it is not clear what the film is trying to prove.
Meanwhile they don't quite explain why a desperate girl in Kenya would get herself into horrendous debt, so she can fly all the way to India, to service the needs of Nigerians studying in the sub-continent. The basic dynamics of the situation - what we now call the Push/Pull - remain unexplained to the end.
