[Music]
all right so growing up as a young child
here in Benin City my mother would often
trace our feet
on pieces of paper just before she was
traveling to the US or to England now
what she arrived she would awkwardly
take these pieces of paper to a shoe
store in an effort to estimate our shoe
sizes whenever she returned back from
the UK or from us however she went we
were always overjoyed regardless of
whether the shoes were too big too small
or just the right fit in my case they
were almost always too small
my younger sister would sometimes have
the same problem and so because my feet
were bigger than hers I would wear her
shoes for a day or two to create more
space to stretch them out so that she
could walk more comfortably I did this
for several years until we finally
started accompanying my mom overseas but
at that point I think it was a little
bit too late I still have one small two
of it didn’t quite recover but there as
I grew older though I realized that
creating space for other people
stretching tight shoes became a
consistent theme in my life it is the
impetus for why I do what I do it is the
reason why the way that I move through
the world is what compelled me to resign
from my law partnership several years
ago in New York to found my NGO
pathfinders which unapologetically
stretches tight shoes it creates more
space for women and girls at the tables
of their lives because I believe that
every woman is entitled to live a life
of dignity a life that she is not robbed
of agency a life that is graced with
self-determination and free from
exploitation but in order to do this
work I first had to look at myself
really look at the women and girls that
we partner with to look at Nigeria and
identify three lies that I believe that
we’ve told ourselves about the value of
our women and girls that has really
affected Nigeria and has really led to
us becoming infamously known globally
around the world on the issue of sex
trafficking now several years ago my
I went to visit my grandfather who had a
house here on EKU’s Street she arrived
to find a young girl who could not have
been any more than 16 or 17 sitting
cowering in the corner and she probably
looked a lot like you and when she asked
my grandfather who this child was he
casually responded to her and told her
that she had been given to him as a gift
a human being a gift and so because she
was now his property he was free to do
with her as he pleased so anybody who
knows my mom knows that he didn’t take
my mom along to have this young girl
pack her bags and return back to her
family but my grandfather’s response he
was indifferent because you see this
wasn’t the first or the last time that
something like this would happen I think
about that little girl often she’s now a
woman and I wonder what became the story
of her life it is one of many stories
that has haunted me over the years
because the reality is that we have a
complicated tortured history with
slavery and the devaluation of human
bodies here in Benin and in Edo state it
is undeniable that amongst the pages of
the great burning kingdoms rich profound
history is a chapter that’s buried deep
in the 15th to the 18th centuries that
reveals our entrenched involvement in
the transatlantic slave trade along with
ivory and palm oil and pepper
we sold female captives of war as the
demand grew we eventually embarked upon
the slave the trade of our own women and
then men because you see everything and
everyone had a price that evaluation and
devaluation of our women and girls the
idea of women being sold and bartered as
has morphed into various forms over the
years but it still remains prevalent in
our society it is the reason why we’re
comfortable exchanging our women in
marriage for what we refer to as a bride
price it is the reason why even in 2018
one of our teenage survivors a young
girl who was 17 was utilized as waiting
we did call my new wife
when her father was unable to repay a
debt to a man fifty years her senior it
is the reason why we’re forced to
exchange sex for marks in University
hashtag Monaco psyche and sex for food
in our internally displaced persons
camps our society has taught us that
every woman every young girl has a price
and so it’s no wonder that here in NATO
state many other and many of our
impoverished young women have adopted
this depraved value system and have
started to view prostitution as an
alternative to poverty it’s no wonder
that annually tens of thousands of our
young women are willing to risk their
lives in the cemetery that is a Sahara
Desert in the hell that is Libya and in
the graveyard that is the Mediterranean
Sea only to then be commoditized in
Europe it is in fact as well now well
documented that over ninety percent the
overwhelming majority of the women who
are trafficked out of Nigeria for sex
into Europe are from out of state one in
every three of our young women has been
recruited that’s 33 percent sex
trafficking overseas particularly when
it happens with consent is highly
concentrated here in our home state and
why is that why would so many of our
young women even knowing that they’re
going to be forced into prostitution
volunteered to be trafficked overseas it
is because they have embraced the first
lie which is that our sexuality our
value as women is inextricably tied to
our sexuality
we’ve been comedy becoming slaves to
this idea to this lie that is literally
eradicating a significant portion of a
generation of young women between the
ages of 15 to 24 in our home state but
what if we were to start to speak the
truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth what if we changed the
narrative engaged in the mindset reset
in a paradigm shift and started to value
our young women and girls simply because
they are worthy
you well if we changed the idea in idle
State and we started to value our women
not just wealth and class and material
things and value our girls you know
because at the end of the day until we
remove the price tag from our young
women and girls until we remove the
price tag and tell their parents
particularly their mothers who are the
primary negotiators of the contract with
the traffickers that they’re actually
more valuable here in Nigeria than in
broken pieces in Italy I’m fortunate
enough that my work with pathfinders
allows me to travel the world to speak
on this issue globally last May I
boarded a flight from Lagos to London I
happen to be sitting next to a white
English businessman who stuck who struck
up a casual conversation and we’re in
Nigeria you from young lady at your
state
I said proudly but the pointedness of
his next statement surprised and alarmed
me he said and exactly what is Nigeria
doing about your sex trafficking problem
fast forward one year to this past May I
was in Italy to speak about our
prevention and rehabilitation efforts
and after a busy day I was just casually
strolling through an open-air market on
numerous occasions I was stopped I was
prodded by different merchants Hawking
their wares who casually asked me the
same question Ciao Bella where are you
from when I finally decided to answer to
you to respond to a trader I was quite
annoyed and I said Nigeria where in
Nigeria I do state immediately
canvassing my body up and down he leaned
in and he said to me you here for job I
was ashamed and simultaneously I was
insulted because you see our reputation
as I do women precedes us and to have
other people tell it the problem of sex
trafficking I do state is insurmountable
in fact one researcher found that eighty
percent of the homes here in a do state
are somehow affiliated with trafficking
that means that the very large
percentage of our young women
have potentially grown up defining
success by the minut percentage of young
of women who are actually trafficking my
dams who are able to send remittances
from Europe back to their families in
fact for a working poor Italy has become
synonymous with lifting one’s family out
of abject poverty and so as a result we
too have bought into the second lie that
eradicating trafficking in our state is
an insurmountable feat but let’s
consider the subject objectively Niger
has a population of a hundred eighty
plus million people projecting our
growth rate in their dough state from
our last census in 2006 only 4.1 million
of those people actually live here in
their dough state of the 4.1 million
four hundred and seventy thousand of
them are women and girls in the 15 to 24
demographic which is the age group of
women that’s most vulnerable to
trafficking we know that poverty is one
of the primary indicators of
vulnerability to trafficking and so
using a doe state’s poverty rates of
19.2% approximately 90,000 of the 470
thousand are arguably the most
vulnerable to trafficking in our state
90,000 that’s a little over the size of
one World Cup Stadium full of women and
girls and so what if we were to a were
able to identify the most vulnerable to
trafficking in a do State and find a way
to provide sustainable economic and
educational empowerment for them while
also simultaneously addressing their
mindset and their belief system could we
potentially drastically reduce and work
towards eradicating sex trafficking
which has become a weapon of mass
destruction in our home state that’s
what we have determined to do with
Project restore which is one of our
projects that will provide customized
interventions in all the local
government areas in Edo state to
counteract the likelihood that at least
one-third of these young women will be
recruited perhaps if faith had received
the support she might still be alive
today
faith grew up here in Benin City she was
poor and uneducated and because of a
limited Economic Opportunity she
volunteered to be trafficked overseas
for
to Libya and then to Moscow she told me
that in Moscow she was forced into
prostitution to repay a debt of $45,000
to her traffickers she told me that
every single day she was forced to have
sex with anywhere between 12 to 15 men
earning five to ten dollars per customer
she was repeatedly beaten and raped as a
result of the assault on her body she
developed repeated kidney infections
which eventually progressed to kidney
disease yet if traffickers forced her to
continue to work because she’s still owe
$26,000 close to death in 2012 she was
discarded on the streets in Moscow and
at that point her one wish was to return
back to Nigeria to be reunited with her
four-year-old daughter working with
several of our partners faiths return to
Nigeria in November of 2015 for six
months we provided weekly dialysis
treatments for her while we desperately
tried to raise her $35,000 that she
needed for a kidney transplant but there
was no help coming not from government
not from the private sector and
certainly not from her impoverished
family I remember the last conversation
that I had with her and the words that
convict and inspired me to continue to
do this work I’m dying
I’m tea I’m dying faith passed away in
September of 2016
she was 31 years old she was survived by
her mother her brother and an
eight-year-old daughter she still owed
$18,000 finally this is Nigeria
everybody be creamy now Abbey
this is the pervasive thought the third
and final pervasive lie that has
infiltrated our country and our minds
the point of paralysis but the truth is
that there are those of us you me and
millions of other people that believe in
the potential of this country and are
doing everything that we can to change
it isn’t that right because you see the
reality is that free people free people
we cannot sit idly by and complain about
the lack of political will to change our
economy to change our education system
to change our infrastructure we the
people are the ones that get to craft
the political will of our leadership but
when there’s failed government doing
nothing is not an option because the
implications of doing nothing the
implications of slavery on our physical
or mental health on our crime rates on
our economy on our education is far too
extensive every year tens of thousands
of young people are embarking on the
mass exodus from Edo State from Nigeria
and every year thousands are dying does
anybody remember the 26 Nigerian girls
that were found dead at sea in November
of 2017 there were mothers they were
sisters
they were daughters they were me and
like faith he died as victims buried
nameless six feet under with nothing but
a number on their graves the truth is
that Nigeria has never truly confronted
its history of slavery and the human
rights abuses that we fostered we have
never truly confronted our degradation
and the depreciation of women and the
patriarchy that is written into our
customs into our religions and into our
laws we have never opened up our palms
to acknowledge the blood on our hands
but your voice will never count if it’s
not heard your intentions will never be
known if they’re not acted upon what
small step can you begin to take today
today to change the narrative as a
parents can you can you commit to
affirming the image and the likeness of
God when you see it in your daughter
every day as a man will you stand as a
gender F advocate and teach our young
boys that the F word
feminism is not a dirty word that
women’s bodies are not for milk
consumption and that their liberation is
just as much ours as it is theirs as the
private sector will you join us in job
creation and economic empowerment will
you help us develop our project restore
as a Nigerian will you vote in 2019 for
candidates that prioritize people over
personal profits and they’re not just
benevolent dictators will you commit to
using your social media platforms to
raise awareness about trafficking will
you help us if you see something will
you say something the time to confront
the past to debunk the lies and to speak
truth to power is now because Nigeria
awaits our future awaits and if you
listen closely enough you will hear the
sound of our children beckoning for
freedom Free People Free People will you
join us in stretching tight shoes thank you for listening
all right so growing up as a young child
here in Benin City my mother would often
trace our feet
on pieces of paper just before she was
traveling to the US or to England now
what she arrived she would awkwardly
take these pieces of paper to a shoe
store in an effort to estimate our shoe
sizes whenever she returned back from
the UK or from us however she went we
were always overjoyed regardless of
whether the shoes were too big too small
or just the right fit in my case they
were almost always too small
my younger sister would sometimes have
the same problem and so because my feet
were bigger than hers I would wear her
shoes for a day or two to create more
space to stretch them out so that she
could walk more comfortably I did this
for several years until we finally
started accompanying my mom overseas but
at that point I think it was a little
bit too late I still have one small two
of it didn’t quite recover but there as
I grew older though I realized that
creating space for other people
stretching tight shoes became a
consistent theme in my life it is the
impetus for why I do what I do it is the
reason why the way that I move through
the world is what compelled me to resign
from my law partnership several years
ago in New York to found my NGO
pathfinders which unapologetically
stretches tight shoes it creates more
space for women and girls at the tables
of their lives because I believe that
every woman is entitled to live a life
of dignity a life that she is not robbed
of agency a life that is graced with
self-determination and free from
exploitation but in order to do this
work I first had to look at myself
really look at the women and girls that
we partner with to look at Nigeria and
identify three lies that I believe that
we’ve told ourselves about the value of
our women and girls that has really
affected Nigeria and has really led to
us becoming infamously known globally
around the world on the issue of sex
trafficking now several years ago my
I went to visit my grandfather who had a
house here on EKU’s Street she arrived
to find a young girl who could not have
been any more than 16 or 17 sitting
cowering in the corner and she probably
looked a lot like you and when she asked
my grandfather who this child was he
casually responded to her and told her
that she had been given to him as a gift
a human being a gift and so because she
was now his property he was free to do
with her as he pleased so anybody who
knows my mom knows that he didn’t take
my mom along to have this young girl
pack her bags and return back to her
family but my grandfather’s response he
was indifferent because you see this
wasn’t the first or the last time that
something like this would happen I think
about that little girl often she’s now a
woman and I wonder what became the story
of her life it is one of many stories
that has haunted me over the years
because the reality is that we have a
complicated tortured history with
slavery and the devaluation of human
bodies here in Benin and in Edo state it
is undeniable that amongst the pages of
the great burning kingdoms rich profound
history is a chapter that’s buried deep
in the 15th to the 18th centuries that
reveals our entrenched involvement in
the transatlantic slave trade along with
ivory and palm oil and pepper
we sold female captives of war as the
demand grew we eventually embarked upon
the slave the trade of our own women and
then men because you see everything and
everyone had a price that evaluation and
devaluation of our women and girls the
idea of women being sold and bartered as
has morphed into various forms over the
years but it still remains prevalent in
our society it is the reason why we’re
comfortable exchanging our women in
marriage for what we refer to as a bride
price it is the reason why even in 2018
one of our teenage survivors a young
girl who was 17 was utilized as waiting
we did call my new wife
when her father was unable to repay a
debt to a man fifty years her senior it
is the reason why we’re forced to
exchange sex for marks in University
hashtag Monaco psyche and sex for food
in our internally displaced persons
camps our society has taught us that
every woman every young girl has a price
and so it’s no wonder that here in NATO
state many other and many of our
impoverished young women have adopted
this depraved value system and have
started to view prostitution as an
alternative to poverty it’s no wonder
that annually tens of thousands of our
young women are willing to risk their
lives in the cemetery that is a Sahara
Desert in the hell that is Libya and in
the graveyard that is the Mediterranean
Sea only to then be commoditized in
Europe it is in fact as well now well
documented that over ninety percent the
overwhelming majority of the women who
are trafficked out of Nigeria for sex
into Europe are from out of state one in
every three of our young women has been
recruited that’s 33 percent sex
trafficking overseas particularly when
it happens with consent is highly
concentrated here in our home state and
why is that why would so many of our
young women even knowing that they’re
going to be forced into prostitution
volunteered to be trafficked overseas it
is because they have embraced the first
lie which is that our sexuality our
value as women is inextricably tied to
our sexuality
we’ve been comedy becoming slaves to
this idea to this lie that is literally
eradicating a significant portion of a
generation of young women between the
ages of 15 to 24 in our home state but
what if we were to start to speak the
truth the whole truth and nothing but
the truth what if we changed the
narrative engaged in the mindset reset
in a paradigm shift and started to value
our young women and girls simply because
they are worthy
you well if we changed the idea in idle
State and we started to value our women
not just wealth and class and material
things and value our girls you know
because at the end of the day until we
remove the price tag from our young
women and girls until we remove the
price tag and tell their parents
particularly their mothers who are the
primary negotiators of the contract with
the traffickers that they’re actually
more valuable here in Nigeria than in
broken pieces in Italy I’m fortunate
enough that my work with pathfinders
allows me to travel the world to speak
on this issue globally last May I
boarded a flight from Lagos to London I
happen to be sitting next to a white
English businessman who stuck who struck
up a casual conversation and we’re in
Nigeria you from young lady at your
state
I said proudly but the pointedness of
his next statement surprised and alarmed
me he said and exactly what is Nigeria
doing about your sex trafficking problem
fast forward one year to this past May I
was in Italy to speak about our
prevention and rehabilitation efforts
and after a busy day I was just casually
strolling through an open-air market on
numerous occasions I was stopped I was
prodded by different merchants Hawking
their wares who casually asked me the
same question Ciao Bella where are you
from when I finally decided to answer to
you to respond to a trader I was quite
annoyed and I said Nigeria where in
Nigeria I do state immediately
canvassing my body up and down he leaned
in and he said to me you here for job I
was ashamed and simultaneously I was
insulted because you see our reputation
as I do women precedes us and to have
other people tell it the problem of sex
trafficking I do state is insurmountable
in fact one researcher found that eighty
percent of the homes here in a do state
are somehow affiliated with trafficking
that means that the very large
percentage of our young women
have potentially grown up defining
success by the minut percentage of young
of women who are actually trafficking my
dams who are able to send remittances
from Europe back to their families in
fact for a working poor Italy has become
synonymous with lifting one’s family out
of abject poverty and so as a result we
too have bought into the second lie that
eradicating trafficking in our state is
an insurmountable feat but let’s
consider the subject objectively Niger
has a population of a hundred eighty
plus million people projecting our
growth rate in their dough state from
our last census in 2006 only 4.1 million
of those people actually live here in
their dough state of the 4.1 million
four hundred and seventy thousand of
them are women and girls in the 15 to 24
demographic which is the age group of
women that’s most vulnerable to
trafficking we know that poverty is one
of the primary indicators of
vulnerability to trafficking and so
using a doe state’s poverty rates of
19.2% approximately 90,000 of the 470
thousand are arguably the most
vulnerable to trafficking in our state
90,000 that’s a little over the size of
one World Cup Stadium full of women and
girls and so what if we were to a were
able to identify the most vulnerable to
trafficking in a do State and find a way
to provide sustainable economic and
educational empowerment for them while
also simultaneously addressing their
mindset and their belief system could we
potentially drastically reduce and work
towards eradicating sex trafficking
which has become a weapon of mass
destruction in our home state that’s
what we have determined to do with
Project restore which is one of our
projects that will provide customized
interventions in all the local
government areas in Edo state to
counteract the likelihood that at least
one-third of these young women will be
recruited perhaps if faith had received
the support she might still be alive
today
faith grew up here in Benin City she was
poor and uneducated and because of a
limited Economic Opportunity she
volunteered to be trafficked overseas
for
to Libya and then to Moscow she told me
that in Moscow she was forced into
prostitution to repay a debt of $45,000
to her traffickers she told me that
every single day she was forced to have
sex with anywhere between 12 to 15 men
earning five to ten dollars per customer
she was repeatedly beaten and raped as a
result of the assault on her body she
developed repeated kidney infections
which eventually progressed to kidney
disease yet if traffickers forced her to
continue to work because she’s still owe
$26,000 close to death in 2012 she was
discarded on the streets in Moscow and
at that point her one wish was to return
back to Nigeria to be reunited with her
four-year-old daughter working with
several of our partners faiths return to
Nigeria in November of 2015 for six
months we provided weekly dialysis
treatments for her while we desperately
tried to raise her $35,000 that she
needed for a kidney transplant but there
was no help coming not from government
not from the private sector and
certainly not from her impoverished
family I remember the last conversation
that I had with her and the words that
convict and inspired me to continue to
do this work I’m dying
I’m tea I’m dying faith passed away in
September of 2016
she was 31 years old she was survived by
her mother her brother and an
eight-year-old daughter she still owed
$18,000 finally this is Nigeria
everybody be creamy now Abbey
this is the pervasive thought the third
and final pervasive lie that has
infiltrated our country and our minds
the point of paralysis but the truth is
that there are those of us you me and
millions of other people that believe in
the potential of this country and are
doing everything that we can to change
it isn’t that right because you see the
reality is that free people free people
we cannot sit idly by and complain about
the lack of political will to change our
economy to change our education system
to change our infrastructure we the
people are the ones that get to craft
the political will of our leadership but
when there’s failed government doing
nothing is not an option because the
implications of doing nothing the
implications of slavery on our physical
or mental health on our crime rates on
our economy on our education is far too
extensive every year tens of thousands
of young people are embarking on the
mass exodus from Edo State from Nigeria
and every year thousands are dying does
anybody remember the 26 Nigerian girls
that were found dead at sea in November
of 2017 there were mothers they were
sisters
they were daughters they were me and
like faith he died as victims buried
nameless six feet under with nothing but
a number on their graves the truth is
that Nigeria has never truly confronted
its history of slavery and the human
rights abuses that we fostered we have
never truly confronted our degradation
and the depreciation of women and the
patriarchy that is written into our
customs into our religions and into our
laws we have never opened up our palms
to acknowledge the blood on our hands
but your voice will never count if it’s
not heard your intentions will never be
known if they’re not acted upon what
small step can you begin to take today
today to change the narrative as a
parents can you can you commit to
affirming the image and the likeness of
God when you see it in your daughter
every day as a man will you stand as a
gender F advocate and teach our young
boys that the F word
feminism is not a dirty word that
women’s bodies are not for milk
consumption and that their liberation is
just as much ours as it is theirs as the
private sector will you join us in job
creation and economic empowerment will
you help us develop our project restore
as a Nigerian will you vote in 2019 for
candidates that prioritize people over
personal profits and they’re not just
benevolent dictators will you commit to
using your social media platforms to
raise awareness about trafficking will
you help us if you see something will
you say something the time to confront
the past to debunk the lies and to speak
truth to power is now because Nigeria
awaits our future awaits and if you
listen closely enough you will hear the
sound of our children beckoning for
freedom Free People Free People will you
join us in stretching tight shoes thank you for listening
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