African-American Studies

Many a scholar has faulted the Arab society in Asia, and Muslims in general, over their real and perceived notoriety in oppression and subordination of women. However, oppression of women is also prevalent in the US and Europe, home to some of the oldest and strongest democracies. The decades of colonization planted the belief that the Europe and the USA provided the best opportunities for immigrants from Africa and Asia. Thousands of women take dangerous sea journeys every year to enter Europe illegally in search of economic refuge. Some travel willingly while many others are trafficked. While some are apprehended and sent back, hundreds of immigrants manage to enter Europe illegally. It is women from this class who are most vulnerable to oppression by western men and states. Most end up working in brothels and drug-running networks, working with law-breaking and drug-using men who often rape, beat up, maim and even kill the illegal immigrants. Violent European and American men take advantage of the facts that the womens illegal status makes it difficult, or impossible for them to report cases of abuse to the police as such would attract an arrest and deportation.

Black illegal female immigrant are also the target of much oppression at the hands of European state institutions where discrimination against non-whites. When arrested for whatever crimes, non-whites face harsher penalties and longer prison sentences compared to their white counterparts. The rate of arrest is higher among women of color and among white girls, not necessarily because black girls (or people) commit more crimes than whites but due to social weakness and moreover, the process of labeling. Black women are humiliated, abused and mistreated by police officers and prison staff, and are not even assured of justice in the courts.   Women of color are therefore the target of state oppression, as well as by individuals.

Question 2
One of the reasons why women join crime networks, mostly as transporters, is to protect themselves and members of their families from drug gangs which threaten to kill or maim them if the women do not transport the drugs. Although these women are paid for transporting the narcotics, their main reason for entering and remaining in the drug industry is the fear that they will be targeted for vicious attacks by members of the drug gangs should they defy or seem to defy the latters demands.

The desperation among these coerced women is exemplified in the case of Beverley Fowler who opted to commit suicide rather than get deported to Jamaica where members of a drug gang had raped her and killed her partner. In countries lacking strong security structures, dancing to the drug gangs tunes offer the only practical chance of survival for these women.
Women choose to enter the narcotics trade to escape the harsh financial realities facing most women in the developing world.

The economic ill-health of most third world economies and the grossly inequitable distribution of available resources ensure that millions of women have very restricted access to the resources. Unable to provide sufficiently for their families, some women are lured into drug trade by the huge financial rewards associated with the narcotics underworld. The income earned from this trade caters for the womens everyday needs, childrens school fees, utilities and housing.  Many women are therefore willing to overlook the risks of drug trade as the income offers them a survival chance. The criminalization of these acts of survival mean that women charged with the crimes are faced with hefty post-conviction penalties which make it very difficult, if not impossible, to re-integrate into society.