Voodoo On The Doorstep Analysis

This weeks readings were R.A van Dijk’s ‘Voodoo’ on the Doorstep: Young Nigerian Prostetitues and Magic Policing in the Netherlands as well as Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe. Van Dijk’s essay is about ‘Voodoo’ and the role it played in Nigerian girls being smuggled into Netherlands and put to work in the sex industry as well as the “moral panic’ from the citizens once it became publicly known. Van Rijk explains that knowledge of these girls “being enslaved in the sex industry primarily through and by voodoo rituals cause a major stir in dutch politics and provoked a deep sense of alarm.”(5) The Dutch police established a “voodoo” team in order to combat the trafficking. In the process they uncovered hundreds of cases as well as