Sexism and Girl-Child Exploitations Madonna in Akachi Adimora-Ezigbo's Trafficked and Sefi Atta's Swallow

Abstract

This research entitled “Sexism and Girl-Child Exploitations in Akachi
Adimora-Ezigbo's Trafficked and Sefi Atta's Swallow” explores sexual
harassment and exploitation as portrayed by the two novelists in their
novels. The researchers noted the considerable skill used by the authors
in portraying the plight of young girls in a merciless world dominated by
greedy, irresponsible and often cruel men and careless parents in their
lives. In Akachi Adimorah – Ezeigbo's Trafficked: the young, innocent
and naïve girls are taken advantage of, and sold out for prostitution and
other money – making ventures by those they trusted. At the end of the
day, humiliation, dehumanization and even demented lives become
their fate contrary to their expectations. Sefi Attah's Swallow discusses
abuse, domestic violence and intimidation that stare the helpless young
maidens in the face as they cannot change their sad situations
individually. The authors talk about the issue of sexual harassment
which stands out amongst the already existing ones as she did that while
addressing other social issues like drug trafficking, tyranny, bad
governance and parental irresponsibility. The study discovered the
gravity of sexism and exploitation on young girls in our society. The
theoretical approach adopted by the researcher in this work is feminism.
The data for this study is from primary sources like the selected texts and
secondary sources like journals and interviews. The study concludes
that it is highly plausible that there will be positive and visible
representations and construction of gender and gender issues which will create avenues for new challenges and clarification of women's
understanding of the past and present, as well as their visions for the
future.