Repatriation without Reintegration: Post-Return Experiences of Nigerian Women Trafficked to the UAE

Background and Purpose:

Anti-trafficking responses often prioritize rescue, extraction, and return while giving far less sustained attention to survivors’ lives after repatriation. Existing scholarship suggests that escape from trafficking does not mark the end of harm, but the beginning of a new phase shaped by stigma, trauma, and structural precarity. Nigerian women trafficked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are often recruited under false promises of work and later subjected to exploitation, coercion, and abuse, with vulnerabilities shaped by poverty, limited opportunities, and systemic inequalities (Okeshola & Adenugba, 2018; Michael, 2023). Although reintegration is often framed as an endpoint, many survivors return to conditions that undermine safety, recovery, and social belonging. Drawing on Goffman’s (1963) concept of stigma and spoiled identity, this study examines how Nigerian women trafficked to the UAE experience life after repatriation, with particular attention to trauma, disclosure, safety, and everyday survival.

Methods:

This phenomenological qualitative study draws on 24 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Nigerian women who were trafficked to the UAE and later repatriated to Nigeria. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling in partnership with anti-trafficking actors in Nigeria. Interviews were conducted by telephone for 45-60 minutes using a trauma-informed, survivor-centered approach grounded in principles of safety, trust, empowerment, and cultural responsiveness (Voith et al., 2020). Interviews were audio-recorded with consent and transcribed verbatim from Pidgin English into English. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis with attention to post-return narratives. Reflexivity, co-coding, and constant comparison were used to strengthen transparency and credibility (Noble & Smith, 2025).

Findings:

Findings suggest that repatriation did not signify reintegration or recovery, but instead marked entry into a prolonged and uncertain aftermath. Four interrelated themes were identified. First, repatriation without reintegration captured women’s return to poverty, unstable housing, unemployment, and limited livelihood opportunities, often leaving them to rebuild with little sustained support. Second, stigma, silence, and social withdrawal reflected the burden of managing a spoiled identity, as participants carefully controlled disclosure to avoid blame, judgment, and exclusion. Third, trauma as an ongoing post-return condition was evident in persistent nightmares, fear, emotional numbing, confinement, and difficulty communicating distress. For some, trauma also reshaped survival itself, making prior strategies for enduring economic hardship psychologically intolerable after what they experienced in the UAE. Fourth, faith and caregiving as fragile anchors of endurance showed how women relied on God, family responsibility, and modest future-oriented efforts to keep going in the absence of meaningful structural support. Across themes, post-return life was marked less by reintegration than by ongoing survival under conditions of social, emotional, and material precarity.

Conclusion and Implications:

These findings challenge the assumption that rescue and repatriation are sufficient responses to trafficking. Social work and anti-trafficking interventions must move beyond return-centered models and invest in long-term, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed support that addresses stigma, psychological distress, and material insecurity after return. Centering survivors’ post-return lives is essential for developing more realistic and humane responses to trafficking and for informing survivor-centered reintegration and prevention efforts.