“MY NAME IS AMINA.”
When they try to reduce her to the number 23, holding on to her name becomes a way of continuing to exist. Remembering the names of the others will matter even more.
Identity · Memory · Resistance
DON'T LET THEM TAKE YOUR NAME
A STORY OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING, RESISTANCE, AND THE FIGHT TO REMAIN SOMEONE
Boubon, Niger. Amina is twenty years old, with a sick mother and two younger siblings she is determined to protect.
When her aunt Zola offers her what appears to be a legitimate job that could change her family's future, Amina agrees to leave. She believes she is taking the first step toward a better life.
She soon discovers they were never hiring her. They were selling her.
SYNOPSIS
Amina leaves home believing she will be able to work, send money to her mother Mariama, and build a future for Youssouf and Fatima.
The journey pulls her through Agadez, the Sahara, and Libya before she is swallowed by a trafficking network that takes her to Lagos. There, she stops being Amina and becomes a number: 23.
In a windowless house, she meets other women trapped by the same system. Safiya, Blessing, Nneka, Kadi, and many others have different stories, but they share the same threat: that someone will erase who they were before they arrived there.
As debt, fear, and violence are used to break her down, Amina begins memorizing names, license plates, routes, schedules, and faces. Because escaping will no longer be enough.
If she ever gets out, she wants the door behind her to open for the women who are still trapped inside.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND
TRAFFICKING AND EXPLOITATION
A story about how the promise of work can become debt, threats, isolation, and control over a person's identity.
RESISTANCE AND MEMORY
Names, stitching, messages, objects, and small acts become weapons against a system built to turn human beings into commodities.
A NETWORK WITHOUT BORDERS
Niger, the Sahara, Libya, and Nigeria form part of a route where exploitation is sustained by fear, corruption, and silence.
THE SYMBOLS OF AMINA
“SOMEONE HAS TO REMEMBER.”
A doll, a scrap of blue fabric, a key, a few stitches, and three knocks: what seems insignificant can carry a story to a place the body itself may never reach.
Family · Testimony · HopeCONTENT WARNING
NOT ALL MONSTERS
NEED TO HIDE.
This novel deals with human trafficking, sexual exploitation, violence, threats, illness, loss, and emotionally intense situations.
WHEN EVERYTHING TRIES TO TURN YOU INTO A NUMBER,
REMEMBERING YOUR NAME IS RESISTANCE.
OFFICIAL SERIES SOUNDTRACK
THE MUSIC OF OTHER LIVES
Listen to the official UNDER THEIR SKIN soundtrack or switch to the Dance version of the series.