Unending battle against the ladies of the night

 Nothing about Ijeoma Akobundu's demeanour suggests her profession. The 26-year-old indigene of Imo State is a gentle soft-spoken lady, and was recently elected as the secretary of the tenants' association of her Surulere residence. She is a commercial sex worker.

Every evening, she leaves for her current place of business; a seedy unnamed hotel near the densely populated Ikotun Bus Stop. There, she changes into her work clothes, pays for a room which she normally shares with a colleague, and settles down to wait for customers. She makes an average of N5,000 daily.

On why she took to the trade, Ms Akobundu, as well as her close friend and colleague, who gave her name as Mercy, proffered the usual reasons of coming from impoverished backgrounds, and having no options than to survive by selling their bodies. However, Mercy's story has a catch.

"After four years (of working as a prostitute), I became tired, and started cooking food near Pako (Aguda, Surulere)," she said. "It was then that my boyfriend impregnated me, and we agreed to marry, but after, he just disappeared. Then after my baby, I started struggling with everything, and my business was affected. That was why I went back to ‘ashewo' work (prostitution). But I will soon start another business by next year, I just want to make my money complete."

A perilous trade?

Health concerns and persecution from law enforcement officials, are top on the list of dangers commonly associated with Nigerian commercial sex workers, but Ms Akobundu offers a startling divergent view. Their greatest danger, according to her, is themselves.

A substantial per cent of her clients are touts and shady individuals who are considered high risk targets for segxwally transmitted diseases, but Ms Akobundu says the risk of contacting such diseases as the dreaded AIDS is the least of their worry. "Since 2004, I have never done it with a customer without a condom, so I am not afraid of that," she said. "Some of us go and see a doctor every month, and he will check us. Even the police is not a problem; we always settle them. It is some of the girls who are out to fight you for taking their customers that we avoid because they can kill."

The path to rehabilitation

The Lagos State government, and most importantly, a slew of nongovernmental organisations, have made efforts to establish structures that will make it easy for the rehabilitation of commercial sex workers who voluntarily desire to turn-around their lives.

Genesis House serves as a shelter for the reformation and rehabilitation of prostitutes. The shelter, an arm of Freedom Foundation, an non governmental organisation, offers the women counselling, skills acquisition training, and informal education. Candidates are either admitted into the shelter where they live for the duration of the programme, or they are considered as out patients "The rehab time frame is between six and nine months," said Zara Mahdi, Programme Coordinator of the shelter. "We identify areas considered as high prostitute population areas and talk to the girls into accepting to reform their lives. We basically work with people whose literacy levels are low. Our greatest challenge is that a lot of women are unsure. Most of them earned between N30,000 and N50,000 weekly, and you ask them to leave that life for something they are unsure of. We build their trust through being their friend and start the reformation process. After the training, we monitor their progress for two years." Lagos State, last year, trained 250 former commercial sex workers in various skills acquisition programmes. Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Joke Orelope-Adefulire, stated this while presenting her ministry's stewardship in the year 2008. "We are planning to train them before sending them back to their home states," she said. "By the time we inaugurate the acquisition home at Ayobo, we are likely to have more commercial sex workers doing away with the trade and having a new lease of life. You know this is a voluntary thing, as we cannot force them to do so. So those who came forward to stop the trade had been assisted by the state government.

It's not easy, but it can be done

Omowale Ogunrinde, founder of Lagos-based Foundation for Skills Development, and an advocate for empowering women in business, while highlighting the steps necessary for rehabilitating commercial sex workers, accepts that it is a hard road to travel, but doable.

"Quitting Prostitution cannot be an easy experience except a suitable alternative is available through much counselling, enlightenment and empowerment," she said. "Young and even older women (I know one who just got into it at 52 years), mostly go into prostitution to meet a need - either financial, social or emotional. Thus when they are being pulled out, we need to ask, has the need been met and will it be met through another means?

"Financial; will there be a source of secure income, guaranteed to meet the financial needs of the person? Social; has he/she now solved their inferiority complex or are they now accepted by the ones who rejected them? Do they now ‘belong?' Emotional; use the case study of the 52-year old woman I know who is now sleeping around. She is married, but feels unloved. Some silly men are showing her some affection and their wallets. If she quits, is there now a solution?" And that, precisely, is the dilemma that Ms Akobundu has found herself in. "I know I have to think about my future, and plan for stopping this work, but for now I don't think anything will bring me this kind of money to solve problems," she said.

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Posted: at 1-08-2010 01:08 PM (13 years ago) | Addicted Hero

Hmm.

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Posted: at 1-08-2010 03:52 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

The bodies are theirs and the life theirs as well.
The option/ decision was equally theirs, so?

Why can`t  I ignore them and go my business since they don`t stand on my way? What'`s the big deal?

And by the way, are they the problem of our society?.

Posted: at 1-08-2010 05:59 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

MONEY MAKING MACHINE

Posted: at 2-08-2010 02:18 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

ok

Posted: at 2-08-2010 09:07 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

ok for watin?

Posted: at 3-08-2010 01:33 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

It's a matter of choice, if they've chosen to trade on that path, it's thier biz.

Posted: at 4-08-2010 04:44 PM (13 years ago) | Newbie

If all (we) men should have gone on strike,
and keep our things inside our trousers for private use only,
bet me, all the ashawo's would have resign their trade,
but some foolish men are still batraying us and going after them,
i will try and catch them one after the other

Posted: at 4-08-2010 06:01 PM (13 years ago) | Upcoming

I HEAR

Posted: at 5-08-2010 01:39 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

money

Posted: at 8-08-2010 05:49 AM (13 years ago) | Upcoming