Debt Bondage, Juju Rituals and Street Thuggery: Instruments of Manipulation in the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Young Nigerian Women in Northern Ghana

ABSTRACT Despite increased global awareness of the harmful and exploitative nature of the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth (CSEC), as well as governments' determination to end the practice, the CSEC still thrives. In recent years, Ghana's northern regional capital, Tamale, has seen a surge in the number of young Nigerian women trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Given the openly hostile attitudes towards the practice, on account of the region's conservative and religious outlook, this paper sought to understand factors contributing to the entrapment of young Nigerian women in CSE in Tamale. Drawing on 21 one‐on‐one semi‐structured interviews with young Nigerian women trafficked into CSE, three law enforcement officers and two officers from the Department of Social Welfare, this paper suggests that one of the central reasons why the phenomenon thrives is due to the use of spirituality and mysticism by traffickers as psychological control mechanisms to subjugate their victims. The fear of the powers of Juju deities keeps victims of CSEC trapped in the practice, unable to leave even in the context of no direct supervision. The paper also shows that victims are further entrapped in the practice through debt bondage and traffickers' use of violence. Thus, the paper suggests that the current approach of targeting the victims on the streets through bans and police swoops needs to change towards targeting the perpetrators (madams and traffickers). The implications of our findings for practice and policy are also discussed.