The work of prostitutes cannot be understood separate from the particular historical and socio-cultural context in which it is carried out, all of which shape the sexual agency of the women involved. In studying commercial sexual relations in urban Nigeria, this paper problematizes prostitution, examining shifts in meanings, perceptions, and the organization of prostitution. How was a prostitute defined in different epochs in Nigeria’s history? How did society organize sex and sexuality and how did these shape commercial sex relations? The discourses on prostitution in Nigeria have focused mainly on human trafficking and migrant prostitution. On the other hand, attempts to document domestic prostitution, as well as its development and mutations over time, in addition to operational and regulatory mechanisms have so far been the preoccupation of but a few scholars. 1 In this literature, the colonial antecedent of commercial sex trade is underscored.
Lagos presents a viable site for an overview of prostitution because of its cosmopolitan landscape and socio-economic and cultural heterogeneity which allow for a mapping of the forms and patterns of prostitution that emerged over time. In the fifteenth century it grew from a fishing settlement engaged in local trading with neighbouring communities
2
into a locale of commercial importance trading with Europe thanks to its strategic location. As a port city, Lagos attracted people of diverse origins, from European traders to freed slaves
For this study, colonial records were used, including police records and administrative correspondences. The private letters of prostitutes and petitions written by ethnic associations as well as the letters of abandoned husbands found in the colonial archives were utilized to allow a glimpse into the ways the prostitutes and family members made sense of the sexual spaces of the city. Interviews with sex workers were also conducted to bring to light the details of contemporary forms of prostitution.
Defining Prostitution
Previous studies have pointed to the definitional problems implicit in attempts to neatly categorize prostitution.
4
As Forster has rightly argued, in western societies the definitional space of prostitution is muddled but this becomes even more complicated when attempting to draw up a cross-cultural perspective. The sexual terrain of precolonial Nigeria has been subjected to varied readings in local and colonial imaginaries. Prostitution as the commoditization of sexual services didn’t exist in the local lexicon but there existed several sexual activities that fell outside conjugal relations. For instance, the engagement of women in extra-marital sexual liaisons was permissible and conducted within culturally sanctioned parameters. In Lagos and other Yoruba communities wives could take a lover, who secured her husband’s approval through payment of a fine for encroaching on “his property” and the performance of culturally
Polygamy and concubinage were also widely practised and they increased after 1850. 5 From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century the number of male slaves transported across the Atlantic outstripped the number of females who were more in demand domestically. 6 By 1800 Lagos had become the principal slave port in West Africa. Its supply of slaves was further increased by Yoruba warfare. 7 Given the fact that most young men couldn’t marry because of high bride prices, female slaves acquired great importance for their reproductive and economic roles. Military expeditions took on increased significance as well in the acquisition of slave wives, and this was one avenue for young men who lacked the financial ability to marry freeborn women as marrying a slave wife exempted one from the obligation to pay a bride price. The price of a bride increased from two shillings in the 1890s to about £2 in 1903, and in many cases young men found themselves deeply in debt. Historical accounts illustrate the preponderance of female slaves in the harems of military men. These slaves were often taken as spoils of war, or they were given as gifts or in some cases purchased. It is difficult to determine the difference in price between a slave wife and a bride because of the paucity of data in Yoruba lands. However, its prevalence among the various communities in the area suggests that it did have certain advantages. Aside from their reproductive and economic functions, female slaves also played a role in forging alliances between communities and individuals, and they facilitated the “control of state mechanisms”. 8 They were valued objects of exchange and their sexual services were traded by their owners for political and economic power. The servility of female slaves and the control of their masters makes it difficult to define their sexual services as prostitution.
Precolonial sexual practices in Lagos and the local geographical landscape which is now Nigeria suggest that women exercised sexual freedom in terms of non-marital sex. Such sexual liberty was incomprehensible to early European travellers and merchants because it was at odds with Victorian ideals so colonial powers sought to control it. Labelling and representation was one
It would be erroneous to equate the sexual practices of married women in precolonial Lagos with some form of prostitution. Rather it should stimulate questions about the meanings of such behaviour for the people who engaged in such practices. An important factor here is the dynamics through which such acts occurred and this is related to the traditional Nigerian context, not western notions. In their study of polygamy in South Africa, Delius and Glaser 9 argue that marriage in precolonial Africa was less about control of sexuality and more about fertility and labour productivity, and historical accounts of Yoruba society in Nigeria attest to this. 10 The practice of women marrying other women into the family was one avenue for those who were infertile or had few children. In this way, they could secure a place in the family by having their husbands get married and acquiring the children that were subsequently born.
In their negative readings of the sexual intimacy of the local population, European writers and the colonial state eroticized what was non-erotic and represented as socially deviant what was culturally legitimate. A good example of this can be seen in the way the colonial imaginary saw the baring of women’s breasts as sexual vulgarity and evidence of female lasciviousness. This inappropriate reading and labelling of non-conjugal sexual liaisons in Africa as prostitution has drawn criticism.
11
It has been argued that the agrarian setting in precolonial Africa precluded the independent capital accumulation of women. More importantly, certain salient features of prostitution such as the indiscriminate sale of sexual services were lacking in the precolonial environment. The relevance of these factors should not be overlooked in the creation of definitions of prostitution for that era, and the origins of prostitution in Nigeria are still unclear. Also, data for the precolonial era is lacking and hence historical explorations of the issue of prostitution remain highly problematic. What is clear is that it was in the colonial period that the prostitute became imprinted in the social imaginary and was subjected to codes of control.
12
State Regulation/Prohibition/Tolerance
With the sustained presence of Europeans in the colonies, sexual prescriptions based on class, race, and gender became increasingly central to the politics of the empire and they were subject to varying degrees of scrutiny by colonial powers. Media publications directed the public’s attention to the rising criminality in Lagos, and this included the “dangers” brought about by young women who engaged in hawking because it was argued that this not only led to prostitution but resulted in them being harassed; in turn, this was linked to prostitution and the spread of venereal diseases amongst European and African military personnel in Nigeria and the Gold Coast, 13 which led the colonial government to criminalize prostitution.
The policing of illicit sexuality was subsumed under the Undesirable Advertisement Ordinance of 1932, the Unlicensed Guide (Prohibition) Ordinance of 1941, and the Venereal Disease Ordinance of 1943. 14 These interjections into female sexual spaces were narratively produced as a state concern for public health and morality by eliminating the sources of such “moral decay” and physical disease. Underlying these concerns were more complex issues concerning modernity and the British role in how that unfolded. The relevant legal documents for stamping out prostitution were mainly enshrined in the Criminal Code of Nigeria of 1916, later amended in 1944, and the Child and Young Person’s Ordinance (cypo) of 1943. The cypo criminalized child prostitution and after being reviewed in 1958, it remained the legal framework relating to child prostitution and other forms of child labour until the promulgation of the Child Rights Acts in 2003.
Sections 222A–222B of the Criminal Code dealt with the procurement, abduction, or encouragement of girls under the age of 16 for the purposes of sold sex; Sections 225 focused on young persons under 18 while Sections 225A
Push and Pull Factors
Determining factors for prostitution cannot realistically be said to constitute either/or factors but in most cases involve a complex mix of diverse factors. For many young women in rural areas, prostitution has represented more than a means of livelihood or a survival strategy. As commonly depicted in the literature, it has been seen as a viable means of participating in global consumer culture, in other words “modern urban culture”. This plays an important, albeit unrecognized, part in the mix of push/pull factors. Lagos for female rural migrants has been perceived as a haven of opportunities not just in terms of wage employment (which has been difficult because of inadequate schooling) or marital aspirations but with regards to a loosening of sexual constraints imposed by traditional censors. The multi-cultural landscape of Lagos has led to an increase in the sense of freedom. The only entry requirement into the sex market has been the female body, and this has facilitated the ease of entry for a heterogeneous mix of women. While lived experiences in the city reflect deprivation, social dispossession, and disillusionment with the romanticized image of city life, shame of failure prevents a return home.
World War ii accelerated the selling of sex, particularly among young women in Lagos. The influx of soldiers and European sailors into Lagos during this period sexualized the city, creating a demand for sex that was filled by prostitutes. The incidence of venereal diseases recorded among the troops of the West African Frontier Force (waff) in 1942 was 43.2%, which was higher than cases of malaria. 19 The war and soldiers’ sexual proclivities caused concerns about the impact of venereal diseases on colonial security forces and the implications that could have for Britain’s racial and moral superiority. This has been explored by Levine in her examination of how colonial policing of prostitution in British colonies, ostensibly to protect the Empire’s troops, was implicated in European imperial designs. 20 From 1967 to 1970, Nigeria was engulfed in a civil war that plunged the country into poverty. For many women, their bodies became weapons of survival, a tool that could be used to negate the effects of war. Women took up the selling of sex for diverse reasons, including access to food and security.
The romanticization of Lagos as a haven of opportunity and the desire to escape the drudgery of agricultural life made girls vulnerable to “traffickers”, but I use the term “traffickers” with caution. While it is true that trafficking did exist, the need for an ordered sexual landscape in the enhancement of European control and the erasure of “tainted femininity” to facilitate the acceptance of local elite women into European spaces likely brought about an overgeneralization of the term. Colonial data does address the coercive nature of child prostitution, which appeared frequently in administrative correspondences, especially from the 1930s onwards. The public imaginary, reflected in newspaper reports and the statements of women’s organizations, condemned the effects of trafficking on children and society’s morality.
There were large numbers of migrant Nigerian prostitutes across the border in the Gold Coast and Equatorial Guinea. The increased visibility of migrant sex workers from Nigeria in the 1930s led Nigerians living in the Gold Coast to feel that their national identity was under threat, and the Nigerian Youth Movement sent a petition to the colonial government protesting the “shame” brought to the country by Nigerian sex workers. Under Gold Coast law, West African prostitutes were allowed to operate in the country and this facilitated the Nigeria-Gold Coast sex trade (Gold Coast Criminal Code Section 435 applied only to non-West African prostitutes). 23
Attempts made by the colonial state to control prostitutes and their mobility included medical regulation, strengthening immigration controls, and repatriation. Criminalization as a state policy was deployed as a means of tackling
Prostitution in Relation to the Labour Market
The sale of sex is not necessarily an exclusive activity and over the years in different parts of the world it has often been engaged in alongside other income-generating activities. In colonial Lagos, these alternate forms of earning an income mostly existed in the informal sector. Studies have shown that most runaway wives, divorcees, and widows combined sex peddling with alternate forms of economic activities, mostly petty trading and hawking.
24
By 1932, the colonial authorities were agitating against the widespread practice of street trading, and it was noted, “There is no street in Lagos or Ebute Metta where hawking or selling outside the houses does not take place.”
25
For younger women, prostitution was a supplement to employment in both the formal and informal sectors. Little reports that there were young women who worked during the day as “seamstresses and in shops and offices […] and dress smartly in European clothes” but they also engaged in prostitution at night by soliciting for clients in bars, clubs, and restaurants visited by members of the upper class, in the process acquiring Europeans and wealthy Africans as patrons.
26
As was the case in other colonial cities,
27
prostitution was closely linked to beer brewing and bar girls traversed the fluid space between catering to male customers in bars and prostitution. As mentioned above, a major concern in colonial times that surfaced in colonial narratives and the popular imaginary was the close link between street hawking by girls and prostitution. The former
It can’t be said that engaging in the commercial sex trade as a full time activity was the norm, and in postcolonial times as well women have continued to combine the sale of sex with other forms of income. In some cases, the income derived from sex work is invested in entrepreneurial activities. The studies of Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta 29 and Margaret Niger-Thomas 30 indicate that in the 1980s prostitutes from Mamfe in Cameroon were engaged in smuggling and cross-border trading in various parts of Nigeria including Lagos, Kaduna, and Calabar. Prostitution as a sole activity does exist, however, among women from lower income groups who sell sex in the slums. In most cases, prostitution is thus a means of survival and the income derived from it is used for daily needs. This group of prostitutes usually lack educational training which further inhibits access to other forms of employment as a supplement to sex work. In contemporary Nigeria, however, the widespread prevalence of cross-border migrant prostitution as well as new globally compliant forms of the sex trade have resulted in a flurry of literature on sex trafficking from a variety of perspectives. 31 Low income sex peddlers in Nigerian urban centres on the other hand have continued to receive little attention. One of the few studies in this regard is a socio-medical study of prostitutes in Lagos by Oleru. 32
Universities and other institutions of higher learning in Nigeria have acquired a reputation as breeding grounds for prostitutes. Termed “runs” in Nigerian parlance, the practice of commercial sex by college girls has become for many of them a means of accessing societal resources and meeting family obligations. The income they earn is often used to set up businesses, in most cases hair salons, bars, and boutiques. Thus for these girls the “runs” trade is carried on alongside their schooling and a benevolent patron establishes some
Prostitution as part of the sex industry in Lagos has been linked to an extensive range of activities that integrate lap dancing, striptease, nude dancing, and in recent times internet and live cam sex. Revolutions in technology and communication have impacted the organization of the sex trade, enabling a diversity of indoor sex work. Independent escorts are able to market themselves and solicit for clients on the internet and beyond it.
In Lagos today, strip clubs and nude bars can be found in different parts of the city including Ikeja on the mainland. While live sex acts are not explicitly allowed at the clubs, the dancers are allowed to go an extra mile with vip clients. It is also here that other sexual activities short of penetration are allowed such as oral sex and masturbation. Girls can leave with patrons they like after work hours. Such commercialized sex spaces tend to normalize prostitution. 33 It is difficult to conclusively pin down popular perceptions about such practices due to a lack of research but fragmentary evidence suggests that lap dancers are less stigmatized than women and girls engaged in selling sex on the streets. The intertwining of such spaces with the corporate industry neutralizes the stigma involved. This was demonstrated with the closure of four strip clubs including Ocean Blue by the Lagos State Environmental Task Force on November 2009. The raids on the clubs elicited mixed reactions but largely criticism for infringement of the rights of the women involved. Going to such clubs was seen as a private affair because it was indoors and consensual. The state legislative body toed the line and the following year the clubs were reopened.
Prostitutes’ Social Profiles
In the colonial period, Lagos had an eclectic mix of prostitutes from different parts of the country. Colonial accounts, however, stated that the majority of women involved were from southern Nigeria, primarily the Cross River region (present day Akwa Ibom Cross River, and some parts of Ebonyi, and Abia
The ages of prostitutes constituted a problem for the colonial administration. Undoubtedly the problem of underage girls selling sex had become a social issue by the 1940s and a broad categorization of “child prostitutes” as codified by the colonial government was deemed to be problematic.
37
As Isuigo-Abanike has noted,
38
girls of similar ages were getting married; within the socio-cultural milieu, girls from the age group labelled “underage” were actually of marriageable age and indeed a 15-year-old, according to the Children and Young Person Ordinance, was not a child. The incidence of “child prostitution” was nonetheless fuelled by the demand for young prostitutes by soldiers and sailors, and several brothels on Lagos Island and other places were noted for having young prostitutes, and they were frequented by European sailors.
39
In contemporary Nigeria, there is a discernible trend in the sex industry that demonstrates that there is a higher percentage of sex workers in their twenties;
The available data on the age structure of prostitutes in postcolonial Nigeria shows that there is a preponderance of women between the ages of 20 and 30 involved in the sex trade. 40 John Lekan Oyefara’s study showed that 89.1 per cent of those surveyed were below 30 years of age while 16.3 per cent were younger than 20. 41 However, the age of entry, as indicated in studies and media reports, falls within a range of 13 to 15 years of age. The Nigerian anti-trafficking agency (naptip) has reportedly evacuated girls as young as 12 from brothels in the course of sporadic raids. 42 Engaging in prostitution is perceived as a transient stage before marriage. This is particularly true for sex workers in Lagos who command a more affluent clientele and are in the 20 to 30 age range. Interviews conducted at the University of Port Harcourt with female students engaged in “runs” show that they do not perceive themselves as prostitutes. That label seems to be reserved for brothel-based and street prostitutes. For them “runs” are part of living the “modern life”, which in their terms incorporates a high life style, adventure, and being financially solvent. As they see it, it is a transitory stage leading towards a sedentary life of marriage. In the course of the fieldwork I conducted for my dissertation, I found that for girls whose preferred clientele are foreigners they hit a goldmine if they get one of their “oyigbo” (white) patrons to marry them. Such a position ensures financial stability for them as well as their families.
In general, kinship networks have been an important part of sex workers’ ability to negotiate the often difficult spaces of commercial sex. Writing in 1972, Kenneth Little demonstrated the importance of ethnic associations in the migration strategies of women in West Africa.
43
These relationships formed the social nexus through which new migrants were able to make sense of the city’s resources. Prostitutes from the Upper Cross River region employed boys of the same ethnic affiliation to act as intermediaries and facilitate access to clients. This reflects the complex relationship between pimps and prostitutes in which the former moved freely between the status of employer/employee. Ethnic
There is a paucity of data for the colonial period on the children of sex workers in Lagos and whether or not they stayed with their mothers. However, evidence from the Calabar and Ogoja provinces of the Cross River region in southern Nigeria suggests that migrant prostitutes from these communities left their children behind with their families and remittances were sent for their maintenance. 44 This trend continued in post-independent Lagos and seemed to be a preferred way for sex migrants at least in the initial stages of migration. It is possible that after obtaining stability in Lagos, children and other dependants may have emigrated as well.
From the late 1980s onwards, the hiv/aids scare has brought the attention of the commercial sex trade to the scholarly community and studies have provided a glimpse into the household strategies of sex workers. Oleru’s study of 150 hotel prostitutes in Lagos shows that 40.7 per cent were married in the 1990s, 70 per cent had previously been married, and 57.8 per cent had their children staying with them. 45 In Caldwell’s work, which was premised on a field study conducted in 1990, more than half of the prostitute population under study had children who were being looked after by the sex workers’ mothers in rural areas. 46 While about 60 per cent were determined to be single, she points out the likelihood of previously married women self-identifying as single. About a decade later, Oyefara’s research in the Ikeja and Surulere areas of Lagos showed a higher percentage: 73.1 per cent of the women in the sex trade were single while 20.3 per cent were either divorced or separated. 47
As regards education, the colonial state and popular narratives suggested that migrant prostitutes were from rural areas, particularly the endemic southern region, and that they were uneducated runaway wives who added to the population of “undesirables” in Lagos. By the 1970s, few prostitutes had secondary educations because such an education would have ensured that they obtained some form of employment. Structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s and the exacerbated economic situation increased unemployment rates and pushed many women, some with secondary school educations, into the sex market. By the late 1980s, migration for prostitution had become a growing
In the twenty-first century, the Lagos sex industry has become highly diversified with different typologies of sex work and practitioners who are heterogeneous not only in terms of working conditions and economic status, but also with regards to education levels. “High-class” prostitutes or sex workers are mostly young women with more than secondary schooling, and they often are attending university or other tertiary institutions like polytechnic schools. The forms of prostitution that exist include escort services, clubbing (soliciting for clients at clubs, bars, and hotels), and in a few cases brothel prostitution. Low education levels would seem to correlate with low incomes and high-risk commercial sexual services. A 2003 survey of “house” (brothel- and hotel-based) prostitutes by Oyefara in Ikeja, the capital city of Lagos, showed that a significant number of prostitutes (39.7 per cent) had a minimum of secondary school education, 12.2 per cent had some form of post-secondary schooling and 12.5 per cent were illiterate. 49
Changes in Working Conditions throughout Time and Space
Outdoor prostitution is usually equated with street soliciting and is usually targeted for criminalization because of its high visibility.
50
Though a large number of practitioners of outdoor soliciting are either very young or old and have low levels of education, it would be wrong to imagine that there are clear-cut categorizations. University students engage in street soliciting at places that are geographically distant from their places of residence; for example, young women from Port Harcourt engage in street prostitution on the street corners
Like other forms of prostitution, indoor prostitution is varied and hierarchical. In Lagos there are women who work with escort services as independent call girls, at strip clubs, and in brothels. Technological developments and the internet have brought about online sex and soliciting. It is common to find younger and more educated women involved in this form of prostitution. University students with their “runs” make up a significant number of this group of sex workers. Closely tied to campus prostitution rings are cults and fraternity groups. Brothels differ in class and type of clientele, ranging from shanty rooms in poor neighbourhoods like Ajegunle and Kango in Alagba Rago market on the Badagry highway; semi-classy brothels are located in places like Ogba, Ikeja and Surulere, and high-end brothels are located on Victoria Island, in Ikoyi, and on Lekki Peninsula. The spatial and socio-economic differentiation of brothels and resident prostitutes is not neatly defined, and as the result of overpopulation in Lagos and the encroachment of slum quarters there are makeshift low-class brothels alongside more affluent ones. A typical example of this are the run-down brothels in Obalende in close proximity to the affluent Ikoyi neighbourhood.
Up until the 1980s, brothels generally housed older prostitutes engaging in survival sex. However, in the late 1980s the increasing number of sex workers who are more educated and the interest of the corporate sector have changed the face of the industry. Not only are education levels increasing but prostitutes have come to include a rather high number of young single women and girls. 51 Not only are there high-class brothels on the affluent Lekki Peninsula, but young educated women, as well as some working class women, are renting rooms in five-star hotels like the Sheraton Lagos Hotel and Towers and The Federal Palace Hotel to do sex work.
The sex market in Lagos and Nigeria is variegated and complex, involving differences in working conditions, price, and organizational structure that result in hierarchies. At the top of the pyramid are the high-class call girls and escorts whose clientele include the rich and powerful. They are usually young, attractive, and educated, and they solicit at expensive bars, highbrow hotels, parties, public functions, and weddings. In bars the normal practice is to lounge
Occupying the middle category are brothel prostitutes, but they are not an undifferentiated mass group. Some of them belong to the lowest rung of the prostitution hierarchy. At the base of this group are brothels in places like Obalende, a commercial district on Lagos Island next to Ikoyi, and Ayilara in Ojuelegba, a commercial district on the mainland. Ayilara in the 1990s was the most widely known red-light district and clients were drawn from all parts of Lagos. In a report published in 2009, the Vanguard noted that the growth of the trade in Ayilara led some property owners to turn their homes into brothels. The cost of sex in such brothels ranged from N500 to N1000 (about $3 to $6). 52 According to the Vanguard the brothels in Obalende were being rented out per hour at a cost of N100, less than a dollar. In brothels located in middle-class neighbourhoods, the residents are more diverse and have varied educational backgrounds including college education. Another Lagos newspaper, pm News, reported that there was a brothel in Iju-Ishaga, one of the middle-class neighbourhoods in the suburbs of Lagos where many of the tenants are girls studying at institutions of higher education. 53 It was reported that rooms were rented for N3000 to N5000 ($18 to $31) for a week and clients were charged from N1000 to N2000 for quick sex, and without a condom the price went up to N2000. All-night sex or what is called tdb (till day break) cost from N3000 to N5000. Prices could go up to N8000 ($49) for a night at brothels where rent was higher.
The social imaginary of prostitutes’ bodies as carriers of disease that was propagated by colonial narratives still resonates in postcolonial Nigeria. The health of prostitutes and the wider implications of health on the politics of the empire have been discussed in various scholarly works.
54
In Nigeria the high incidence of venereal diseases among members of the colonial army at the turn of the twentieth century resulted in the criminalization of prostitutes for being carriers of disease. Interestingly, Aderinto’s study indicates that colonial efforts to tackle the menace of venereal diseases were exclusive of prostitutes
In postcolonial Nigeria, the hiv/aids epidemic has resulted in the focusing of the state and public gaze on sex workers as a high-risk group and drawn increased scrutiny from health organizations for the purposes of intervention. Statistics from unaids/who indicate that the estimated hiv prevalence rate for adults (15–49 age group) in 2001 was from 2.5 to 5.7 per cent, and this had decreased by 2007 to a range of 2.3 to 3.8 per cent. Aside from hiv/aids, other venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhoea are common. There is a correlation between a sex worker’s level of education and her ability to negotiate safe sexual relations. A prostitute’s socio-economic status also plays a part as those engaged in survival sex are less able to assert some form of agency in terms of the health risks they take. Physical violence, unwanted pregnancies, gynaecological complications arising from improper abortions, and to a lesser extent ritual deaths (killing for occult sacrifices) are some of the physical health issues faced by sex workers. Infertility was particularly rife in the early twentieth century among prostitutes, and the procurement of children from rural provinces by prostitutes in urban centres such as Lagos and across the border in Sekondi-Takoradi and Accra in Ghana were means by which disease-ridden, infertile prostitutes could assuage their maternal urges. 57 In the twenty-first century, medical technology and its greater accessibility for a wider group of people, especially in cosmopolitan areas like Lagos, have mitigated the problem of infertility though it is still major issue especially among prostitutes practicing in the slums of Lagos.
Prostitute/Employer/Client Relationships
Prostitutes in Lagos in the early twentieth century worked independently for the most part. There was, however, a blurring of the operational spaces of
From the 1980s onwards, there has been an increasing diversification of the sex industry and this is evident in the increase in migration for prostitution, linkages between sold sex and corporate culture, and what Coy, Wakeling, and Garner term the “pornification of popular culture”. 61 This has turned the sex industry into a multi-dollar business managed by organized crime syndicates. A flourishing form of prostitution in which pimps and madams are commonly utilized is the abovementioned “runs” of educated women, most of whom are students at universities or other institutions of higher learning. At the University of Lagos, girls’ dorms and their environs have become sexualized spaces where sex is bartered and sold. While some of the girls work independently, many others employ the services of a pimp or madam (who may also be a student).
Interviews conducted with young women at the University of Lagos and Port Harcourt indicate that madams are often used in prostitution rings which are part of female gangs or fraternities at these institutions. The leader automatically assumes the position of madam, while pimps on the other hand
Escort services are more likely to be used by more educated women such as those enrolled at institutions of higher education and those employed in the formal sector. Escorts perceive themselves as being superior to lower-end prostitutes and often enjoy a lavish lifestyle. They tend to exercise more control in terms of the clients they take and their working conditions. However, the ability to self-advertise has expanded the population of escort girls. The Lagos escort and strip club directory offers a list of escort girls, strip clubs, and escort agencies. 62
Conditions of Compliance and Traces of Defiance
Prostitution is a heterogeneous space involving a diversity of forms, working conditions, status, and self-perceptions. The question of choice is closely interwoven with this and forms part of the dynamics of the trade. The extent to which coercion or choice determines a prostitute’s sexual activities is dependent on the position she occupies in the hierarchy in sex work. It is easy to discern coercion in cases of trafficked girls and women. Forced prostitution is more commonly experienced in such cases, as earlier noted among underage rural girls trafficked into prostitution in Lagos. For other women such as runaway wives, working girls, and other young women, entry into the sex trade occurred without coercion. Indeed commercialized sex has been utilized in many cases as a way for women to circumvent male control. Ssewakriyanga 63 posits that in the sale of sexual services, the prostitute could be said to be resisting patriarchy and one-man control, thus defying stereotypical ideas of power.
Prostitution can be seen as an act of defiance and resistance directed against the social spaces to which women are traditionally confined, a countering of prescribed notions of womanhood and thus a threat to patriarchy. Relegated
The question of forced or free prostitution becomes problematic when considered in light of the number of people in the sex industry who are able to exercise choice. In other words, the freedom of “choice” is not so free but can only be exercised by a select few. Poverty can be read as a state of being that robs a prostitute of the right to make an informed choice because of a lack of other choices. This is particularly evident among poor prostitutes practicing in the slums of Lagos. It can also be applied to women who are forced to sell their sexual services to maintain their households, and students who sell sex to pay for their education. Free choice thus remains more elusive for low-ranking prostitutes in Lagos.
Conclusion
With the expanded field of permissible sexual expression and the loosening of societal constraints, young Nigerian women are increasingly employing their bodies as economic tools to gain access to societal resources. This choice has been further enhanced by increased knowledge about reproduction and the use of contraceptives. The Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (ndhs) carried out in 2008 showed that over 50 per cent of women aged 25 to 49 had their first sexual encounters by the age of 18, and about 20 per cent by the age of 15. Knowledge about family planning methods has increased and 70 per cent of women are knowledgeable about family planning.
The female body has become demystified and female agency has been highlighted. However, as I have argued elsewhere,
64
a woman’s choice to trade her body as a marketable product cannot be analysed outside the value society places on female sexuality. It could be argued therefore that prostitution among
Benedict B.B. Naanen, “‘Itinerant Gold Mines’: Prostitution in the Cross River Basin of Nigeria, 1930–1950”, African Studies Review, 34 (1991), pp. 57–79; Saheed Aderinto, “‘The Girls in Moral Danger’: Child Prostitution and Sexuality in Colonial Lagos, Nigeria 1930 to 1950”, Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1 (2007), pp. 1–22; Mfon Ekpootu, “Interrogating Policies on Human Trafficking in Nigeria”, in Toyin Falola and Bridget Teboh (eds), The Power of Gender, the Gender of Power: Women’s Labor, Rights and Responsibility in Africa (Trenton, 2013), pp. 551–566.
Quoted in Oluwole Ajala Alagbe, “Combating the Challenges of the Rise of Urban Slums in Cities of the Developing World: A Case Study of Lagos” (Unpublished Paper, International Conference on the Built Environment: Innovation Policy and Sustainable Development, Covent University, Otta, Ogun State, 2003), p. 3.
See Robin Law, “Trade and Politics behind the Slave Coast: The Lagoon Traffic and the Rise of Lagos”, The Journal of African History, 24 (1983), pp. 321–348.
Peter G. Forster, “Prostitution in Malawi and the hiv/aids Risk”, Nordic Journal of African Studies, 9 (2000), pp. 1–9; Marjolein van der Veen, “Rethinking Commodification and Prostitution: An Effort at Peacemaking in the Battles over Prostitution” Rethinking Marxism, 13 (Summer 2001), pp. 30–51.
Olatunji Ojo, “Reviewed Beyond Diversity: Women, Scarification, and Yoruba Identity”, History in Africa, 35 (2008), pp. 347–374.
Ibid.; Claire Robertson and Martin Klein (eds), Women and Slavery in Africa (Portsmouth, 1997).
For a detailed analysis of the rise of Lagos and its commerce in slaves, see Robin Law, “Trade and Politics behind the Slave Coast”, pp. 321–348.
Ojo, “Reviewed Beyond Diversity”, p. 354.
Peter Delius and Clive Glaser, “The Myths of Polygamy: A History of Extra-marital and Multi-Partnership Sex in South Africa”, South African History Journal, 50 (2004), pp. 84–114.
Ojo, “Reviewed Beyond Diversity”, pp. 347–374.
See for example Suzette Heald, “The Power of Sex: Some Reflections on the Caldwells ‘African Sexuality’ Thesis”, Africa, 65 (1995), pp. 489–505; Hilary Standing “aids: Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Researching Sexual Behaviour in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Social Science and Medicine, 34 (1992), pp. 475–483.
Naanen, “‘Itinerant Gold Mines’”, pp. 57–79; Aderinto, “The Girls in Moral Danger”, pp. 1–22; Ekpootu, “Interrogating Policies”, pp. 551–566.
Carina Ray, “The Sex Trade in Colonial West Africa” (Part 2), New African, 458 (2007), pp. 66–68.
Saheed Aderinto, “Sexualized Nationalism: Lagos and the Politics of Illicit Sexuality in Colonial Nigeria, 1918–1958” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2010), p. 61.
Richard Roberts and Kristen Mann, “Introduction”, in Kristen Mann and Richard Roberts (eds), Law in Colonial Africa (London, 1991), pp. 15–23.
Laurent Fourchard, “Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria 1920–60”, Journal of African History, 47 (2006), pp. 115–137, 117.
See for example Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990); Philippa Levine, “A Multitude of Unchaste Women: Prostitution in the British Empire”, Journal of Women’s History, 15 (2004), pp. 159–163.
Aderinto, “The Girls in Moral Danger”, pp. 18–19.
Ibid., p. 19.
Philipa Levine, Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York, 2003).
Aderinto, “Girls in Moral Danger”; Mfon Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labor in the Cross River Region of Southern Nigeria from 1900” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Port Harcourt, 2008).
Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labour”, p. 133.
Carina Ray, “The Sex Trade in Colonial West Africa”, pp. 66–68.
Kenneth Little, “West African Urbanization as a Social Process”, Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, 1 (1960), pp. 90–102, 96.
Laurent Fourchard, “Lagos”, in Simon Bekker and Göran Therborn (eds), Capital Cities in Africa: Power and Powerlessness (Dakar [etc.], 2011), pp. 66–82, 69.
Little, “West African Urbanization”, p. 96.
Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990).
Ekpootu “Prostitution and Child Labour in the Cross River Region”, pp. 149–150; George Abosede “Within Salvation: Girl Hawkers and the Colonial State in Development Era Lagos”, Journal of Social History, 44 (2011), pp. 837–859.
Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, “Challenging Patriarchy: Trade, Outward Migration and the Internationalization of Commercial Sex among Bayang and Ejagham Women in Southwest Cameroon”, Health, Culture and Society, 1 (2011), pp. 167–192.
Margaret Niger-Thomas, “Women and the Arts of Smuggling” African Studies Review, 44 (2001), pp. 43–70.
Tim S. Braimah, “Sex Trafficking in Edo State Nigeria: Causes and Solutions”, Global Journal of Human Social Science Research, 13 (2013), pp. 17–29; Rasheed Olaniyi, “Global Sex Trade and Women Trafficking in Nigeria”, Journal of Global Initiatives, 6 (2011), pp. 111–131.
U.G. Oleru, “Prostitution in Lagos: A Sociomedical Study”, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 34 (1980), pp. 312–315.
Maddy Coy, Joseph Wakeling, and Maria Garner, “Selling Sex Sells: Representations of Prostitution and the Sex Industry in Sexualised Popular Culture as Symbolic Violence”, Women’s Studies International Forum, 34 (2011), pp. 441–448.
Aderinto, “The Girls in Moral Danger”, pp. 9–11; Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labour”, p. 152; Ekpootu “Interrogating Policies”, p. 545.
Aderinto, “The Girls in Moral Danger”, p. 22.
Ibid., p. 21.
In 1943, via the Children and Young Person’s Ordinance an attempt was made to distinguish between a child and a young person. A child thus came to be a person under 14 years old and a young person was anyone between the ages of 14 and 17. These policies provided the means by which the sexual activities of persons labelled as children came to be criminalized by the colonial government.
Uche Isiugo-Agbanike, “Nuptiality and Fertility Patterns among Adolescent and Young Adults”, in CHESTRADStatus of Adolescents and Young Adults in Nigeria (1997), pp. 17–36.
Laurent Fourchard, “Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency”, p. 126.
John Lekan Oyefara, “Food Insecurity, hiv/aids Pandemic and Sexual Behaviour of Female Commercial Sex Workers in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria”, Journal of Social Aspects of hiv/aids , 4 (2007), pp. 626–635, 630; Oleru, “Prostitution in Lagos”, pp. 312–335.
Oyefara, “Food Insecurity, hiv/aids Pandemic”, p. 630.
Available at: www.naptip.org; last accessed 15 April 2012.
Kenneth Little, “Voluntary Associations and Social Mobility among West African Women”, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6 (1972), pp. 275–288.
Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labour”, p. 145.
Oleru, “Prostitution in Lagos”, p. 313.
Pat Caldwell, “Prostitution and the Risk of stds and aids in Nigeria and Thailand”, Health Transition Review, supplement to vol 5 (1995), pp. 167–172, 170.
Oyefara “Food Insecurity”, p. 630.
Oleru “Prostitution in Lagos”, p. 312.
Oyefara, “Food Insecurity”, p. 630.
See Ronald Weitzer (ed.), Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry (New York, 2009).
Chimaraoke O. Izugbara, “Constituting the Unsafe: Nigerian Sex Workers’ Notions of Unsafe Sexual Conduct”, African Studies Review, 50 (2007), pp. 29–49, 33.
Newsnigeria, “Ayilara Still Mother of Lagos Sex Trade”, available at: http://www.nigeria70.com/nigerian_news_paper/ayilara_still_mother_street_of_lagos_sex_trade/106474; last accessed 11 July 2017.
pm News, “Varsity Students Besiege Lagos for Prostitution”, available at: http://news1.onlinenigeria.com/templates/?a=1708&t=Varsity%20Students%20Besiege%20Lagos%20For%20Prostitution; last accessed 11 July 2017.
Levine “Venereal Disease, Prostitution, and the Politics of Empire”, pp. 579–602; Ray, “The Sex Trade in Colonial West Africa”, pp. 66–68; Aderinto “Sexualized Nationalism”.
Aderinto, “Sexualized Nationalism”, p. 32.
Ibid., pp. 33–37.
Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labour”, pp. 99–100.
Aderinto, “Girls in Moral Danger” (2007); Fourchard, “Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency” (2006); Simon Heap “Their Days are Spent in Gambling and Loafing, Pimping for Prostitutes, and Picking Pockets: Male Juvenile Delinquents on Lagos Island, 1920s–1960s”, Journal of Family History, 35 (2010), pp. 48–70.
Fourchard, “Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency”, p. 124.
Ekpootu, “Prostitution and Child Labour”, pp. 99–100.
Coy, Wakeling, and Garner, “Selling Sex Sells”, p. 442.
Available at: www.cityoflove.com.
Richard Ssewakriyanga, “Interrogating Sexual Identities and Sex Work: A Study on Constructed Identities among Female Sex Workers in Kampala”, in Gender, Economies and Entitlements in Africa: CODESRIA Gender Series (Dakar [etc.], 2004), p. 115.
Mfon Ekpootu, “The Body as a Tool: Negotiating the New Global Order by Female Youths in Nigeria”, National Development Studies, 5 (2012), pp. 1–17.
Ekpootu, “The Body as a Tool”, p. 1.