Why Prostitution Should Be Decriminalised in Nigeria

 

Yemi Olakitan

Prostitution is common practice in Nigeria, especially in the major cities. A naïve young man can easily be lured by these women of easy virtues who stand on the red zones of Lagos looking for clients to patronize them. This is not to say that prostitutes target young men alone. Older, married men also patronize prostitutes in Nigeria. There is no age or status barrier. Clients come from the poor, the low, the high and the mighty.

Investigations by this journalist revealed that the practice of sex work is so commonplace in Nigeria that nearly every community has a brothel, particularly in Lagos and Abuja. Hundreds of beautiful young women can be found in the clubs and brothels selling sex.

This is an irony because nearly everybody condemns prostitution in Nigeria. The imams, the pastors, the lecturers, the doctors, the lawyers, all condemn sex workers, yet there is a high population of prostitutes in the country.

We live in a very religious country. Nigeria has some of the largest churches in the world, the synagogue Church of all Nations, Living Faith Church, and The Redeemed Christian Church of God, with populations hitting five million in one church alone. The Muslims may not have very large mosques but their population is closely following the Christian population as well.

 If Nigeria has a very large population of religious people, the question to ask is: who are the people patronizing the prostitutes? If Nigeria has very religious people who lay claim to high moral standards, who are the clients of the equally large population of sex workers?

In the words of Ayo Ogunjobi, social commentator and blogger, Nigeria must stop the hypocrisy. The government must recognize that some things are with us and deal with them accordingly so that our brothels will not be a haven for much more heinous crimes. It is an irony that a country that has anti-prostitution laws should have such high numbers of sex workers.

In Nigeria, Prostitution began to boom in the early 1980s when street prostitution become a common sight on Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Oshodi and later Kuramo Beach in Lagos. It started slowly after Nigeria's independence in 1960.

The common description of prostitution as the oldest profession in the world is really an understatement in the most populous black nation in the world.

Tina, who claimed to be a member of the Association of Nigerian sex workers says the association has about, 1,000,000 members working in different parts of the country but not all prostitutes working in Nigeria are registered. 

Another question is why? Why do young, beautiful and promising Nigerian women go into prostitution? The first answer is poverty. There is no social welfare program in the country.  The result is that poor women struggle to provide for themselves. Many women, without an education or any other means of livelihood except their bodies, strive on the streets of Lagos to survive.

We can also find an answer to this question in peer pressure and extreme poverty. ''My friends are all doing it why shouldn't I? ‘In a chat with Aisha from Benin on why she is practising prostitution, she explained,

 ‘’ I have no one to take care of me except my mother who is living in the village. Since my father died, we have been alone. If I don't do that who will take care of me?''

Aisha said she has a daughter and she pays her school fee from the proceeds of prostitution. According to her, she plans to set up a small business once she makes enough money from sex work.

The fact remains that prostitutes are very poor in Nigeria. Many are led into the profession as a result of extreme poverty. The money many of them make does not really deliver them from the chains of lack. They work, they earn, and they spend it. Most of it is on riotous living because of bad company. Alcohol and marijuana are easy to come by on the streets. 

 However, it has also been argued that there are those who choose to practice prostitution, not because they are poor but because they love the profession but this is rare.

 Investigations have confirmed that many of these young women are in the sex trade because of poverty and circumstances beyond their control.  It is very difficult to find a financially comfortable young woman who still wants to sell her body. 

Most of them are from very poor backgrounds, largely uneducated women or half-educated; who could not continue their education due to a lack of support from the government or known relatives. 

There are also those who are shrewd enough, not to spend their earnings from sex work on frivolous things but on things of value such as education, or a small business.

A young woman named, precious will fall into this category, she agreed that economic factors pushed her into sex work. According to her, she later discovered that she loves sex and enjoyed satisfying her clients especially when good money is involved. The question was posed whether she will abandon the profession if offered a better job. She said, she would. 

Precious is a classic example of the flawed argument that some women willingly go into sex work not necessarily because of poverty as she clearly stated that if given a lucrative job she will take the job. 

Comfort, a full-time prostitute from the Igbo tribe in Eastern Nigeria, used the proceeds from sex work to get an education. Now, she holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications Studies. However, Comfort continues to work in the sex industry. When asked why? She said, she has not got another job yet but as soon as she has an alternative job, she will abandon the sex work.

As we can see from the scenario of Comfort, she wanted an education but she does not have the money to pay for tuition, so she became a sex worker.

 Patience from Edo state worked as a full-time sex worker in Lagos for many years. She set up a hairdressing salon from her savings. In an interview with the writer, she said, she had trained as a hairdresser in Benin but did not have the money to set herself up in business. She decided to come to Lagos to do prostitution in order to save up for her dream business.

Today, she has opened a shop and runs a successful hairdressing salon. When asked if she still wants to do sex work. She said, no. According to her, she wanted to get married and have children.

Another young woman, named Amara who spoke to the writer on the subject said she went into prostitution when her marriage ended. She said, her husband used to abandon her with three children.

 ‘’ He used to lodge in a hotel behind our home with an older woman for months. He will not care for me and our children. Things became so bad and I did not want to steal. I turned to the only option available to me which is prostitution.  I have many clients including a Chinese man. This Chinese is a gentleman, he took me to the hospital for various tests; HIV, COVID 19, Genotype, etc. He has been taking care of me and I give him sexual services. We are both happy. He told me he has a family in China. He just wanted a woman in Nigeria to make him happy.’’

In 1987, the Women's Center in Nigeria wrote a press release about the harassment, assault and rape of prostitutes by law enforcement members. Here is another problem Prostitutes face in Nigeria. Law enforcement officers regularly harass them for sex and money. These policemen take advantage of the law.  

Prostitution is illegal in Nigeria.  In all Northern States that practice the Islamic penal code, it is illegal. 

In Southern Nigeria, the activities of pimps or madams, underage prostitution and the operation or ownership of brothels are penalized under sections 223, 224, and 225 of the Nigerian Criminal Code. 

However, this is only in the books not in practice. Prostitution is widely practised in both northern and southern Nigeria. Brothels can be found in nearly all communities in Nigeria. Prostitution seems to have become an accepted practice in our country. As a result, policemen regularly exploit sex workers, arrest them, and then demand a bribe. Most of the time, these bribes may be in cash or in kind.

The illegality of prostitution is really a problem in the sense that, unscrupulous people take advantage of it. The Federal Government should rather legalize prostitution if it cannot enforce its laws. In any case, it is difficult to eradicate prostitution. Who could stop two consenting adults who have decided to have sex? Lock them up in a dungeon, they will do it. What is the point of law in the books that have no teeth in practice?

Prostitution should be legalized, monitored and regulated. It is nearly impossible to eradicate prostitution. Those who want to have sex with a sex worker will always find a way and the sex worker will always find the clients. We should be concerned about the hidden crimes beyond prostitution. 

This is the reason why it is called the oldest profession in the world. The government should rather regulate it in order to eradicate the more severe crimes of child prostitution, human trafficking, rape and extortion by law enforcement officers, organ harvesting, armed robbery and so on.

A sex worker who is robbed by a client cannot report the offence. Why should she report when she can be arrested and exploited by policemen? When a drug lord hides in a brothel, who will report to the police? 

These things are all hidden in prostitution. It will be easier for them to tackle these things when prostitution is legalized so that prostitutes can cooperate with the government in order to expose the criminals hidden among them.

Human trafficking and other offences hidden in prostitution will easily be reported by the sex workers if they are free to work with the police without fear of harassment.

Another big problem is transnational commercial sex work which started during British colonial West Africa. It began to grow into a transcontinental business in the 1980s. Starting in the mid-1980s, the trafficking of Nigerian women to European countries such as Italy began to gain attraction, according to reports.

Young women are usually lured into transnational sex workers by very wealthy individuals who operate variously criminal activities including organ harvesting. The illegality and criminalisation of prostitutes who are usually victims of circumstances only make matters worst. 

Prostitutes actually need help from the law enforcement agents and the Federal Government and not to be hounded. 

In many of the cases, there were examples of coercion.  For example, a trafficked person is asked to swear an oath to a juju priest. Some personal items such as bodily fluids are taken by the priests for keeping or used to administer the oath and seal the agreement. This keeps the victim in extreme phobia and mental bondage. In addition to the fact that prostitution is illegal in Nigeria.

 When the women reach the foreign country of the destination they are immediately indebted to the trafficker for transport and lodging fees and will have to be paid off before they are freed, if ever. The US Department of State Office dedicated to Monitoring and Combating Trafficking in Persons ranks Nigeria as a 'Tier 2 Watch List country.

The illegal status of prostitution only sweeps the activities of the sex industry under the carpet as we have seen in Nigeria. The way forward is that government must show interest in sex work in Nigeria and protect its citizens.

They should show an active interest in the sex workers so as to be able to cooperate with them to fish out human traffickers, drug traffickers, armed robbers, ritual killers and paedophiles etc. This is because brothels are the hidden places of various criminals since prostitutes cannot report them for fear of harassment. 

The government can also provide counselling resources and rehabilitation programs for those who are in the sex business by circumstances and not by choice.

There are many young women in the trade who want to get out of the profession but are trapped by circumstances beyond their control. Government can offer scholarships to those who want to go to school but do not have the means. They can provide access to health care, thereby preventing the spread of infectious diseases.

Only by decriminalizing prostitution can government do all these and many more. They can also encourage social workers to operate among prostitutes. The Nigerian government must realize that prostitutes are human beings, they are not from the moon.