Prostitution in Nigeria
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.
[2] The Nigeria criminal system prohibits national and trans-national trafficking of women for commercial sex or forced labour.
Nigeria is a signatory to the 2000 United Nations[2] Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.
[3] One of these was called Fattening rites or mbokpo which was practiced by Efiks in Southern Nigeria and Anangs of Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom state.
[3] Young girls were put in confinement for some time depending on the wealth of their families, and received visits from older women who fed and taught them laws of the land and marital duties.
[3] Often an unmarried girl was found out to be pregnant; she would undergo humiliation by being paraded through the streets naked, while villagers threw things or jeered.
Although, chasity among young girls was placed with high regard, scholarly work reveals a variety of socially permissible sexual interactions outside marriage.
A study conducted by Delius and Glasier, concluded that marriage in African societies was less about asserting control over women's sexuality and more about making sure child births were consistent with efficient labor productivity.
[7] Many of the young men who had not been taken for slavery were unable to pay high bride prices for women who held value for reproductive and economic roles.
[9] "Hawking" which is a slang term for prostitution, is argued by researchers like Saheed Aderinto to have only been possible in major cities in Nigeria like Lagos, where the population jumped rapidly from 5,000 inhabitants to a quarter of a million in over a century.
The law was implemented discretionarily by the government and commercial sex work was tolerated as long it did not lead to public nuisance.
[11] In response, secretary Donald Cameron emphasized that the Colony police was taking care of any prostitute who had caused any sort of disruption to the public.
By the 1930s, prostitutes were linked with notorious delinquents’ groups like the Jagudas and Boma boys in Lagos and they were beginning to be called Ashewo or people who change money into lower denominations.
During the pre-World War II period commercial sex workers solicited clients in brothels, cinemas and hotels bars[9] in the Lagos Island districts of Broad St, Breadfruit, Labinjo, Martins, Porto Novo Market- and Taiwo [13] In Lagos, commercial sex work was majorly practiced by non-Lagos natives and were called names like Ashewo (Yoruba word), Karuwaci (Hausa), Akwunakwuna (Igbo word) and Asape.
[16] After the onset of World War II, British officials became apprehensive about any link between high venereal disease rates in West African Frontier Force soldiers and promiscuous sexual affairs with prostitutes.
In 1943 Abidjan, a Nigerian born child prostitute named Lady was killed by her older handler, Mary Eyeamevber Eforghere of Warri Province, Nigeria, for refusing to have sex with a European sailor.
[21] The colonial government also established a welfare and social services department to manage the hostel and rehabilitation of child prostitutes.
[23] Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as "the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation".
[27] By the early 1980s, street prostitution became a common sight on Allen Avenue, Ikeja and in some areas of Oshodi and later Kuramo Beach.
[27] In 1987, the Women's Center in Nigeria wrote a press release about the harassment, assault and rape of prostitute by law enforcement members.
[28] Trans-national commercial sex work which started during British colonial West Africa began to grow into a transcontinental business in the 1980s.
Coercion happened in situations whereby the women or adolescents to be trafficked were asked to swear an oath that was administered by an African religion or juju priest.
[27] When the women reach the country of destination they are immediately indebted to the trafficker for transport and lodging fees and will have to pay off the debt before they are freed, if ever.
[30] Some scholars have stated that prostitution in Nigeria increased as a result of the adverse economic effect of the drop in oil price in the early 1980s followed by the implementation of structural adjustment programs in the middle 1980s.
Based on the estimates of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, about 8,000 – 10,000 women of Nigerian descent practiced prostitution in Italy between 2000 and 2009.
Due to the continual downward spiral of the Nigerian economy, general unemployment and changing moral standards of the current generation of youths, many young women between the ages of 19 and 29 including university students have turned to prostitution or its euphemistic title "Hookup" as a means to attain self-reliance or material/luxury lifestyles.
In 2010, hearings were held on the floor of the House of Representative about the Bill for an Act to Prohibit Corporate Prostitution and Exploitation of Women and for Other Matters Connected Therewith.
