Photo exhibition on human trafficking at DIIS

A collection of photos shot by migrant women and DIIS-researcher Sine Plambech is now at display at the DIIS Library under the title DISPOSABLES - Life after selling sex in Europe

“Shoot photos of your everyday life”, Sine Plambech asked a group of Nigerian women migrants, who had been deported to Nigeria after selling sex in Europe, some of the women after being involved in human trafficking.

The photos form part of the research project “Point of Departure: Life after human trafficking in Western Europe” which analyzes Nigerian migrant sex workers and the institutions that seek to intervene in their migration. The project explores the ways in which the politics of “trafficking” simultaneously has led to forced deportations and politically ambiguous humanitarian “rescue projects”. It is also concerned with the social and gendered reality of deportations.

Most of the photos are from Benin City in Nigeria, a West African migration port from where an estimated  85 percent of Nigerian women selling sex in Europe have set out. Today, Benin City is increasingly becoming a deportation city where deportees arriving from Europe are trying to re-establish their lives among mushrooming NGOS receiving money from Europe to support victims of human trafficking upon return.

The exhibition is located at the DIIS Library, Østbanegade 117, 2100 Østerbro and runs from Dec 9th until January 2014

Read an interview with the researcher

The project on human trafficking is a part of the larger research framework on “The Migration Industry and Markets for Migration Control.”