R obin P hylisia C hapdelaine . The Persistence of Slavery

The Persistence of Slavery: An Economic History of Child Trafficking in Nigeria charts the historical antecedents to contemporary child trafficking in southeastern Nigeria, focusing on the colonial era from the 1910s to the 1930s. The book not only expands the growing historical literature on children and childhood in Africa, but it also illuminates the diverse kinds of unfreedom that can coexist, contiguous and overlapping with slavery, such as pawning, in which a person is left with the creditor until the debtor can repay the loan. Robin Phylisia Chapdelaine argues that scholars of contemporary child bondage should not consider it either modern-day slavery or a new form of slavery. Instead, she traces the continuities in child trafficking in southeastern Nigeria—from the Aro network that moved and sold children across long distances, often secretly, to the fact that children had varied experiences of exploitation and abuse when they were pawned depending on...

Archaeology · Colonialism · Creditor · Criminology · Debt · Debtor · Economics · Human trafficking · Loan · Persistence (discontinuity) · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History