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Nigerian women and international prostitution By In the second quarter of 1999, a Dutch Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) reported on the plight of 400 under-aged Nigerian prostitutes living in the Netherlands. According to the report, these under-aged girls were smuggled into the Netherlands by unscrupulous merchants who keep these girls working long hard hours and under terrible conditions in order to recoup their fees for transporting the girls into the country. Recently, a study reported in one of the Nigerian newspapers stated that most of these girls prostituting in Europe come from Edo State, once the cradle and pride of West African civilisation, art and culture.
In 1996, another NGO, this time in Germany, reported a similar situation for Nigerian prostitutes in Germany. This is also the case in Italy, Belgium, Spain and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom. The activities of these prostitutes and the agents that ferry them have resulted in very bad publicity for Nigeria, to the extent that all Nigerian women are seen as potential prostitutes and Nigerian men, potential pimps. This and several other nefarious acts committed by people supposed to be Nigerians has resulted in untold hardships for honest Nigerian citizens living at home and abroad. For instance, for those in Nigeria, it has resulted in very strict international travel requirements and for those abroad, racism, discrimination, limited access to credit and so forth. For the European countries concerned, the trafficking of Nigerian women has resulted in higher crime rates, illegal aliens and increased costs of law enforcement.
The question however remains to be asked, why are so many Nigerian women so willing to go abroad and become prostitutes? Several opinion leaders and NGOs concerned about this issue have all argued collectively that poverty is at the root of this problem. However, after careful consideration, one is forced to conclude that this is a rather simplistic analysis of the problem. I am unwilling to accept poverty as the root of this problem, for several reasons. In the first place, Nigeria is much richer than most African countries, yet Nigerian women top the list of the numbers of African women in prostitution in Europe. Besides, prostitution is most uncommon in village where the poverty level is higher than in the cities. In addition, the looters of Nigeria's treasuries are far from being poor yet they engage in banditry, which baffles even the average armed robber. From a different perspective, if one takes a more historical approach, we will discover that despite poverty, Africans, Asians and African-Americans denied themselves the little comforts that could have accrued to them in the quest for independence and self-actualisation. In Africa, especially in the case of South Africa, the bid to dislodge the obnoxious apartheid regime, led many African workers to embark on several strikes, which denied them their already miserly incomes.
In addition, they called for international boycott of South Africa despite the extreme hardship they knew they would face if such a call were heeded. In India, under Mahatma Ghandi, Indians en-masse went through untold hardship to win independence. In the United States of America, African-Americans refused to travel by bus in protest against segregation. Many of them walked tens of kilometres to their places of work and back rather than ride on the buses, poverty and hardship not withstanding. In Nigeria, million of Christians and Moslems fast and self-flagellate every year in order to win the approval of their maker, despite the absolute discomfort of such practices.
I highlight these examples in order to demonstrate that rather than poverty, Nigerians' international prostitution is as a result of a lack of pride, self-esteem and the lack of a collective goal and a national dream that we can all share and believe in. The examples cited above were able to work, because the people involved had a bigger dream that went beyond personal satisfaction. This is what we lack in Nigeria and what makes prostitution and all the other vices we experience so endemic. Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, a few years ago, started the debate in South Africa on "Who is an African?" This debate was not merely an academic exercise, but one which was meant to ginger the South Africans into thinking about their Africaness. In Nigeria, not only is such intellectual discourse lacking, the alternative is the most divisive and banal discussions on Sharia, confederacy, ethnic autonomy, OPC, Bakassi boys etc. The National Assembly is only interested in allowances and contracts and the executive in international travel. Young people have nothing to believe in and old people gnash their teeth to their graves. It is no wonder that parents and daughters alike come to see money as the only reason to live and are, therefore, willing to act as co-conspirators in enhancing the trafficking of Nigerian women.
No amount of poverty alleviation programmes, vocational training and income generating alternatives can replace the lucrative business of women trafficking except a serious programme of national rebirth is launched which emphasises the pride of self-country and race. If Nigerians have nothing beyond money to believe in, have no greater values to uphold and have no pride to preserve, they will never stop trafficking in women, engaging in 419 and looting the treasury. The question of who is a Nigerian? What should a Nigerian be?" Who is an African? What should an African be? And finally in a world characterised by racism, what values should the black race collectively uphold must be debated. It is only when these issues become national and the average Nigerian begins to see him/herself as being an ambassador of Nigeria, regardless of status, that people can say no to acts that will hurt the country. Then they can begin to understand that self-esteem itself can be a gold mine. October 2001
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