The Role of Juju Rituals in Human Trafficking of Nigerians: A Tool of Enslavement, But Also Escape

Abstract

In 2018, the Oba (King) of Benin city in Edo state (Nigeria), a spiritual and traditional leader with significant authority, made a public, spiritual declaration on Nigerian human traffickers (especially those originating from Edo state) and proclaimed that victims of trafficking who were bound by oaths taken during the juju rituals were free. The Nigerian trafficking network relies mainly on juju as a control mechanism to keep the victims bound and subservient to them. Based on repeated in-depth interviews with young Nigerian women and teenager teenage victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, this article discusses how juju is used by the trafficking networks to keep their victims exploited, enslaved and indebted. Concurrently, the participants’ narratives also illustrate the important impact of the declaration of the Oba for some women and teenagers in their process to leave the trafficking networks.