This article applies social network analysis to a case study to analyze therole of madams in an Nigerian sex trafficking network. Using relational data ontelephone conversations, the main centrality measures are calculated. They areinterrelated with the roles of all the members of the network. The analysis confirmsthe importance of madams already highlighted by many academics, but surprisingly italso shows that not all madams are equally central in terms of their brokeragepositions. Indeed, two different groups of madams are identified according to theirbetweenness centrality, which is the measure that best reveals the strategic positioningof the nodes within a network. The content analysis and description of the madams’ego networks demonstrate that the main requirements for occupying a brokerage roleare (i) being able to operate also outside Italian borders, and (ii) being at the sametime part of relational systems involving “transnational” people whose action extendsbeyond national borders. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

sex trafficking Nigeria Italy Network analysis Centrality Madams

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