Franca's Story: They are selling their girlfriends

Description

Franca was in her early twenties and the time for her coming-of-age ceremony was approaching. In her tribe in Nigeria, girls are expected to undergo female genital mutilation as an initiation rite to enter mature womanhood. Franca did not want to be circumcised and she escaped from home. First she went to the nearest city, but then she decided to go to Libya to look for work.  She left with a group of other people in a smuggler’s vehicle. When they arrived in Niger, they ran into difficulties. The driver had not been paid by the smuggler and they had to stay in a filthy compound for three weeks until he agreed to take them to Libya. Having arrived in Libya, Franca realised that the grim reality was completely different from what she had expected.  It was a dangerous place, especially for women. People who had come there looking for work were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Some were sold even by their own boyfriends who saw this as a way to buy a plot of land back home in Nigeria. Franca was herself detained in a trafficker’s compound, where people were brutally beaten to force their families to pay ransom.  She managed to escape and got on a smuggler’s boat to Europe. The sea crossing to Malta in an overloaded boat was a horrible experience and Franca thought they were all going to die. Today she is telling everyone, Don’t go on this journey! No one ever experienced anything good, it’s only bitter stories.

Metadata

Published to Youtube on: 28/06/2020

Archived on: 30/09/2025

Original URL (may no longer be available): https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qggde0YUQJE