Understanding Human Trafficking as a Social Issue in Nigeria

277 Pages·2017·5.2 MB·English

Understanding Human Trafficking as a Social Issue in
Nigeria: A Multi-stream Formative Social Marketing
Approach
Author
Badejo, Foluke Abigail
Published
2016
Thesis Type
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
School
Griffith Business School
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/133
Copyright Statement
The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
Downloaded from
http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365561
Griffith Research Online
https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au
Understanding Human Trafficking as a Social Issue
in Nigeria: A Multi-stream Formative Social
Marketing Approach

Foluke Abigail Badejo
Bachelor of Communication (Marketing & Journalism), Griffith University
Master of Marketing Management, Griffith University
Master of Public Relations, University of Southern Queensland
Graduate Certificate of Arts (Writing, Editing & Publishing), University of Queensland
Master of Marketing with Honours, Griffith University

Department of Marketing,
Social Marketing @ Griffith
Griffith Business School,
Griffith University

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

August, 2016
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Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................ 2
I ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................. 4
II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................... 11
III STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP .............................................................................. 14
IV PHD SPECIFIC PUBLICATIONS ................................................................................................... 15
V TABLE OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................... 17
VI LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. 18
VII LIST OF APPENDICES ................................................................................................................... 19
VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... 20
IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OF PAPERS INCLUDED IN THIS THESIS .................................... 21
1. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 23
1.1 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................................................. 23
Human trafficking in Nigeria – An overview ......................................................................................... 26
Human trafficking, voluntary behaviour and social marketing .................................................... 29
1.2 RESEARCH RATIONALE AND AIMS .................................................................................................................................... 38
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ....................................................................................................................................................... 39
1.4 RESEARCH DESIGN .............................................................................................................................................................. 40
1.5 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEORY AND PRACTICE ................................................................................................................. 41
1.6 STRUCTURE OF THESIS ....................................................................................................................................................... 42
1.7 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................................ 43
2 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 44
2.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................................... 44
2.2 HUMAN TRAFFICKING DIMENSIONS: THE NIGERIAN CASE ............................................................................................ 44
2.3 ROOT CAUSES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN NIGERIA: THE PUSH/PULL FACTORS ...................................................... 47
2.4 CURRENT HUMAN TRAFFICKING INTERVENTIONS IN NIGERIA ..................................................................................... 50
2.5 EXTENDING SOCIAL MARKETING TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A NEW APPROACH ........................................................ 53
2.6 A NEED FOR FORMATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MARKETING ........................................................................................ 58
2.7 FRAMEWORK FOR CONDUCTING FORMATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIAL MARKETING ...................................................... 60
2.8 RESEARCH GAPS AND QUESTIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 82
2.9 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................................ 84
3 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ..................................................... 85
3.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................................... 85
3.2 RESEARCH POSITION ........................................................................................................................................................... 85
PhD research overview .................................................................................................................................... 86
3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN .............................................................................................................................................................. 87
3.3.1 Study one .................................................................................................................................................... 88
3.3.2 Study two .................................................................................................................................................... 92
3.3.3 Study three ................................................................................................................................................. 95
3.4 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................................ 99
4 CHAPTER IV: STUDY ONE ............................................................................................................ 100
4.1 ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................................................... 102
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4.2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................. 103
4.3 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................................................... 107
4.4 METHOD ............................................................................................................................................................................ 110
4.4.1 Critical discourse analysis (CDA) .................................................................................................. 110
4.4.2 Data sources ........................................................................................................................................... 111
4.4.3 Methods of analysis ............................................................................................................................. 112
4.4.4 Processing analysis .............................................................................................................................. 114
4.4.5 Social analysis ........................................................................................................................................ 121
4.4.6 Theoretical and practical implications ...................................................................................... 125
4.4.7 Limitations and future research directions .............................................................................. 126
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 128
5 CHAPTER V: STUDY TWO ............................................................................................................ 133
5.1 ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................................................... 135
5.2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................. 136
5.3 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................................................... 138
5.4 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................................ 147
5.4.1 Key informant interviews ................................................................................................................. 147
5.4.2 Auto-ethnography ................................................................................................................................ 149
5.5 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................................. 151
5.6 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEORY AND PRACTICE ............................................................................................................... 168
5.7 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................................... 169
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 171
6 CHAPTER VI: STUDY THREE ....................................................................................................... 178
6.2 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................................................... 181
6.3 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................................ 184
6.4 FINDINGS ........................................................................................................................................................................... 185
6.5 DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................................................................................... 195
6.6 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................ 197
6.7 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................................... 199
6.8 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................................................... 201
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 203
7 CHAPTER VII: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 207
7.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................. 207
7.2 RESEARCH PURPOSE AND DESIGN ................................................................................................................................. 207
7.3 ADDRESSING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................................................... 208
7.3.1 Research Question 1 ............................................................................................................................ 208
7.3.2 Research Question 2 ............................................................................................................................ 212
7.3.3 Research Question 3 ............................................................................................................................ 218
7.3.4 Research Question 4 ............................................................................................................................ 221
7.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY ........................................................................................................................................... 221
7.5 CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL MARKETING FORMATIVE RESEARCH ............................................................................ 225
7.5.1 Methodological contributions and triangulation of data .................................................. 225
7.5.2 Applicability of Social Marketing to a broader scope of social issues ........................... 227
7.5.3 Contribution to understanding the problem of human trafficking ................................ 229
7.6 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE ......................................................................................................................................... 231
7.6.1 Implications for Social Marketing Programs .......................................................................... 231
7.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH .................................................................................................................................... 237
7.8 FUTURE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................................................................... 239
7.9 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................................................... 241
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 243
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................................ 263
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I Abstract

Human trafficking is a multi-faceted problem that continues to impact a broad range
of people around the world, including the trafficked, their families and local
communities (Ikeora, 2016). Nigeria was named one of the top eight countries of
origin for human trafficking and is one of the leading African countries in human
trafficking with substantial cross-border and internal trafficking (UNODC, 2006; US
Department of State Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, 2016). There have been
calls for human trafficking in Nigeria to be addressed as a social problem (Asiwaju,
2008) involving voluntary and non-voluntary behaviours (Long, 2004; Goździak &
Bump, 2008; Zhang, 2009; Hoyle, 2011; Weitzer, 2014; Murray et al., 2015).

Existing human trafficking interventions in Nigeria include law (migration controls
and legislative measures), education (public awareness campaigns) and pilot
economic empowerment programs (NAPTIP, 2014; Duru & Ogbonnaya, 2012) yet
the extent of human trafficking continues to rise (Adepoju, 2005; Carling, 2005;
Okojie, 2009; Duru & Ogbonnaya, 2012), prompting calls for the phenomenon to be
considered through an alternate lens (Asiwaju, 2008; Goździak & Bump, 2008;
Weitzer, 2014) such as marketing (Pennington et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2015).

Hence, this program of research was designed to understand human trafficking as a
social issue in Nigeria through the alternative lens of social marketing. Although
social marketing has been used to combat problem behaviours for over 40 years
(Lefebvre 2011), and the effectiveness of the approach widely documented (Stead et
al., 2007), recent systematic literature reviews (Carins & Rundle-Thiele, 2014;
Kubacki et al., 2015a, b, c; Fujihira et al., 2015) indicate incomplete use of formative
research in social marketing programs, despite scholars acknowledging the
importance of formative research in social marketing (Lefebvre & Flora, 1988;
Walsh et al., 1993; Andreasen, 2002; French & Blair-Stevens, 2005; Robinson-
Maynard et al., 2013). Application of formative research helps to instill an
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understanding of the consumer and surrounding influences (social and
environmental), while theory use can improve program outcomes (Andreasen,
2002; Truong & Dang, 2016; Lefebvre, 2013).

Therefore, this program of research employs a rigorous formative research design
approach, using three of the eight social marketing benchmark criteria proposed by
the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) (2006), namely customer orientation,
insight and theory, which collectively form the basis of formative research in social
marketing (French & Blair-Stevens, 2005). Formative research was conducted
across each of the three streams of social marketing (upstream, midstream and
downstream), which is rare in social marketing literature notwithstanding calls for
multilevel social marketing interventions (Bayliss-Brown et al., 2015; Kennedy,
2015; Layton, 2014, 2015) because deeper exchange insights come from all eyes on
the problem, addressing the barriers to, options for, and benefits of change at each
level (Domegan et al., 2016).

Hence, the actionable insights gained from this robust formative multi-stream social
marketing approach to understanding human trafficking can be used to inform and
design effective social marketing programs aimed at preventing and reducing the
problem of human trafficking in Nigeria.

Study one is situated in the upstream social marketing space and asked the
question:

RQ1 How is the problem of human trafficking in Nigeria represented across
government-sponsored anti-human trafficking advertisements?
Study one conducted a critical discourse analysis of ‘crafted texts’ comprising state-
sponsored anti-human trafficking advertisements across print and television, and
transcripts of interviews with key state officials. The study sought to understand
how the state’s production and representation of human trafficking may be
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reproducing existing social inequalities (Fairclough, 1999) and thereby contributing
to the problem of human trafficking in Nigeria. While current anti-human trafficking
advertisements are working to create mass awareness of human trafficking
throughout Nigeria (NAPTIP, 2014; US Department of State TIP Report, 2016), this
study reveals that hegemonic beliefs of the state about voluntary participation in
human trafficking both threaten and undermine the success of existing prevention
efforts. Specifically, the state’s moralising of human trafficking creates the single
social identity of ‘deviant’ for both voluntarily trafficked persons and human
traffickers. This moralising of voluntary participation in human trafficking
reproduces existing socioeconomic and sociocultural inequalities because it
discourages citizen participation in the fight against human trafficking while
stigmatising trafficked persons (see Olaniyi, 2003; Omorodion, 2009), in addition to
inadvertently promoting human trafficking as a possible source of gaining wealth.
Furthermore, the moralising of human trafficking focuses attention on the issue of
sex trafficking at the expense of other forms of human trafficking, thus marginalising
other perspectives such as the much bigger problem of child trafficking (see Okojie,
2009; Folami, 2008) in Nigeria.
Study two is situated in the midstream social marketing space and asked the
question:

RQ2 How are sociocultural influences experienced across human trafficking endemic
states in Nigeria?

Study two sought to understand how sociocultural influences are experienced
across two human trafficking endemic states in Nigeria using auto-ethnography and
key informant interviews of socialisation agents (family members). This study found
that external influences, from the family unit to broader sociocultural factors, play a
role in the lives of the sample population across human trafficking endemic states in
Nigeria. Some key informants in this study were found to endorse human trafficking
because of the perceived benefit that it provides ⎯the opportunity to escape
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socioeconomic oppression in Nigeria. This explicit support of human trafficking by
some key informants supports this study’s theory that experiences of oppression
has given rise to a false consciousness about human trafficking in Nigeria. This false
consciousness about human trafficking implies that key informants could
themselves become enablers of human trafficking through negatively influencing
members of their family or social unit. Given that family members can function as
socialisation agents (Brennan et al., 2014), and consumer socialisation is a lifelong
process as consumers continue to learn from others throughout their lifetimes
(Ekstrom, 2006), these key informant insights about human trafficking could be
contributing to the problem of human trafficking in Nigeria. Furthermore, while this
study supports previous studies in that voluntary participation in human trafficking
is motivated by economic hardships including poverty and unemployment (see
Okonofua et al., 2004; Elabor-Idemudia, 2003; Ellis & Akpala, 2011; Omoroguiwa,
2012), more importantly it also finds that key informants have become hopeless
about their own ability to change their socioeconomic condition within Nigeria. This
hopelessness in Nigeria is reflected in their distrust of the state to provide for them,
and in their experiences of systematic class oppression. Furthermore, social
influences in the form of reference groups and a hegemonic popular culture that
glorifies overseas-made wealth also appear to contribute to an idealised view of
migration, further fuelling the desperation to escape oppression for greener
pastures abroad. Additionally, this study found that the link between child labour
and child trafficking was undervalued by informants because of traditional practices
and beliefs. The Nigerian traditional practice of child fostering, whereby poor rural
families are motivated to send their children to extended family members to live
and earn an education (Folami, 2008; Allais, 2006; De Haas, 2006), as well as the
norm of child labour have thus functioned as a false consciousness for parents
because children end up being exploited and vulnerable to human trafficking. Yet,
this study found that parents do not appear to comprehend the risks, with
informants drawing on their own childhood experiences of child labour to support
the norm of child labour in Nigeria.

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Study three is situated in the downstream social marketing space and asked the
question:

RQ3 What is the lived experience of Nigerian persons that have been trafficked within
and outside Nigeria?

Study three sought to understand the lived experience of Nigerian women who have
been trafficked both within and outside Nigeria, using existential phenomenology as
a method.

The study found that although human trafficking is a global problem, there are
various dimensions to the experience of being trafficked. Despite their varied
experiences, the majority of trafficked participants viewed human trafficking
positively, and did not identify as victims because they were not forced into it.
Rather, they viewed human trafficking as an opportunity for freedom from
unemployment in Nigeria, even if for some of them the costs of that freedom were
emotional and physical abuse. For these women human trafficking was a preferred
alternative to the oppression of joblessness and the inability to make ends meet in
Nigeria. This study also found that the majority of trafficked women did not feel
exploited by their traffickers, and that the few who did exercised their agency by
seeking help to escape from their traffickers. This finding contradicts previous
literature which found that victims are prevented from escaping their human
traffickers through psychological forms of control such as oaths (see Ikeora, 2016),
or that trafficked women were afraid to seek help from relevant authorities (see
Abdulkareem & Oladipo, 2010), or that victims were unaware of their legal rights
(see Olaniyi, 2003). Participants’ voluntary participation in human trafficking
suggests a false consciousness about the perceived role of human trafficking
because the trafficking trade appears to favour the human traffickers who profit
from these women, who are deported while still in debt bondage to their traffickers,
or before they have a chance to also profit from human trafficking. Ironically,
deported/‘rescued’ trafficked women end up feeling like victims of the state because
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they were unwillingly rescued and some of them are held against their will at state
shelters for trafficked persons. The insights from this study indicate that the state’s
existing dichotomous victim/criminal lens used to address the problem of human
trafficking in Nigeria is problematic since it relies on a single story (victim/criminal
narrative) to address a complex problem.

The last research question sought to apply a new theoretical lens to understanding
human trafficking in response to calls by Goździak and Bump (2008) with the
question:

RQ4 How can the Marxist concepts of false consciousness and cultural hegemony guide
and explain formative research insights in human trafficking?

This program of research demonstrated that the concepts of false consciousness and
cultural hegemony can be used to guide formative research in human trafficking.
Firstly, the concept of false consciousness provided the premise for this program of
research⎯by framing the problem of human trafficking through a new theoretical
lens that has not previously been associated with the issue. This research found that
research participants suffered from false consciousness in that their positive mental
model of human trafficking systematically conceals the realities of their
subordination, exploitation and domination at the hands of human traffickers. For
example, study three supports this theory of false consciousness in the way that the
system seems to favour human traffickers over trafficked women. Study two was
also framed by false consciousness, in addition to cultural hegemony and consumer
socialisation theory, enabling the design of interview questions aimed at exploring
whether this theory could provide insights into human trafficking. The actionable
insights gained from the three studies suggests that a false consciousness about
human trafficking was evident in research participants and in the auto-ethnography
conducted, and that this false consciousness about human trafficking emerged from
experiences of oppression at socioeconomic and sociocultural levels. Cultural
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