Anti-trafficking and anti-smuggling campaigns in West Africa as new racialised migration deterrence efforts

The core argument of this chapter is that anti-trafficking and anti-smuggling campaigns targeted at Africans countries are new additions to systems of racial discrimination used to immobilise Africans and thereby limit their equal participation in the global political economy. The last two decades have witnessed intensification in human trafficking and human smuggling prevention campaigns and other initiatives across West Africa, Nigeria notably. These are presented as measures intended to reduce deaths on precarious migration routes, tackle “sex trafficking” and labour exploitation or fulfil other humanitarian functions. Drawing on the findings of an exploratory study with a group of Nigerian women trying to get to Europe in the context of these campaigns, this chapter challenges this framing. It argues that the humanitarian portrayal is opportunistic, for it conveniently conceals the fact that the ongoing campaigns are rooted in long-standing interests in preventing Black bodies from reaching European shores.