Migration, Human Trafficking, Sexploitation and Trauma in Amma Darko’s Beyond The Horizon

Abstract

Human trafficking and sexploitation have become prevalent migration configurations in Africa that often plunges the victims into harrowing mental, emotional, and physical trauma. This paper aims at portraying African female immigrants’ experiences in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon projecting the female migrant characters as victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse, and economic exploitation in the hands of their selfish and egoistic husbands. Given the complexities of the lives of African women who immigrate to Europe and get caught in a spider’s web of prostitution and pornography, the fictionalized German universe in the text reveals that Europe is not the “Eldorado” where milk and honey flows in abundance as perceived by most Africans. The paper’s analysis employs a feminist analytical framework to examine the objectification and commodification of the black female body. It submits that, despite their traumatic experiences, these African immigrant women assert their sexuality by challenging the status quo thereby obtaining for themselves an emancipated female agency that allows them to take control of their own bodies as well as their financial gains.