2025/03/06 by David BAZIE & Alfred KIEMA
#FOS: Languages and literature
paper · doi:10.48734/akofena.n015.vol.5.37.2025
Abstract: African novels, notably, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street and Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon vividly paint how human trafficking, criminal business, shape people’s lives in African countries. Both authoresses Unigwe and Darko through their victimized characters in their selected works project social realities and deepen the reader’s understanding of the complexity of human trafficking in today’s Africa. In this respect, this study examines the root causes and strategies of human trafficking in On Black Sisters’ Street and Beyond the Horizon. In addition, the theoretical approach for implementing this research is essentially rooted in Abraham H. Maslow's human motivation theory which discusses the human hierarchy of needs in society. It deals with human being’s different needs to achieve self-actualization or self-fulfilment. this article firstly discusses economic pressures, secondly, tackles family demands, and finally examines traffickers’ strategies to trap people in Africa. This critical analysis contributes to raising collective awareness about hidden realities that make people vulnerable to human trafficking in contemporary African societies. Keywords: human trafficking, Africa, self-actualization, vulnerable