Digital Wounds, Literary Testimony: Trauma, Trafficking, and Gendered Violence in Jackie Phamotse's Bare Series

Abstract

This study examines the representation of human trafficking, torture, trauma, and mental scars in Jackie Phamotse's Bare series, comprising five novels published between 2017 and 2023: Bare: The Blesser's Game (2017), Bare II: The Cradle of the Hockey Club (2020), Bare III: Ego (2021), Bare IV: Mercy (2022), and Bare V: Curtain Call (2023). Through close textual analysis grounded in an integrated theoretical framework combining African literary theory, feminist standpoint theory, trauma theory, and ethical literary criticism, this research illuminates how Phamotse's work constitutes a significant intervention in contemporary South African discourse on gendered violence, economic exploitation, and the psychological consequences of systemic oppression. The analysis reveals that the series offers a Complex portrayal of the complex intersections between digital technologies, the blesser-blessee economy, and human trafficking networks in post-apartheid South Africa, demonstrating that social media platforms function as active facilitators of gendered economic violence where visibility becomes synonymous with worth and algorithmic logic enables the commodification of female bodies. This study contributes to filling a significant gap in scholarship, as no previous academic study has comprehensively examined how South African fiction represents the experiences of trafficking victims, the trauma they endure, and the mental scars they carry. The findings demonstrate that Phamotse portrays vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation as shaped by the intersection of race, class, and gender, depicting how young Black women from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately targeted by traffickers and blessers, reflecting the persistence of racialised economic inequality decades after the formal end of apartheid. The study also examines how Phamotse represents institutional responses to trafficking, critiquing the inadequacy of police responses, social services, and the justice system in protecting vulnerable women. The significance of this research extends beyond literary analysis to engage with pressing social issues, as human trafficking has emerged as one of the most critical human rights violations of the contemporary era, with an estimated 40 million people subjected to trafficking globally; in South Africa, the phenomenon presents particular complexity due to the country's position as both a destination country for transnational trafficking and a source country for internal trafficking, combined with Complex legal frameworks and persistent implementation challenges.