JENDA: A JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND AFRICAN WOMEN STUDIES ISSN: 1530-5686 Issue 8 (2006)

Oluwakemi A. Adesina

Abstract

The international sex trade now has crucial national and global significance. This recourse to a more sophisticated trans-national sex trade in Africa’s most populous nation has been increasingly ascribed to the Edo people of southern Nigeria because Edo State, populated by the Bini and its sub-groups, became the hub of international sex trade in Nigeria. This trade, which began in the mid-1980s, involved the trafficking of young girls across international borders to serve as foreign exchange-earning sex workers in different countries. In consequence, strategies adopted by Mrs. Eki Igbinedion—First Lady of Edo State—and other Non-Governmental organizations devised strategies to combat the trend, including the use of Queen Mother Idia, a historical symbol of women’s power and dignity to persuade international sex workers to abandon the trade. This paper argues that sex work became seen as a way out of the poverty and unemployment that permeates Nigeria—a country that is rife with an army of beggars, and school leavers at all levels that have not been gainfully employed. Thus, recourse to the past for inspiration is inadequate to solve contemporary problems, particularly when the juxtaposed situations of the past and present have little or nothing in common. Womanhood as constructed in pre-colonial Edo has changed like every other phenomenon in the age of modernity, and Edo womanhood exists in a society that has redefined home and family within the exigencies of the basic needs and requirement of survival in a very harsh socio-economic environment.

“Edo is only one of the 36 Nigerian states, but it has produced over 80% of the women trafficked to Europe, becoming the prostitution center of Africa.”[1]

Introduction

Sex work, a vocation that belongs to the “illegal informal sector”[2] of the Nigerian economy, became illegally transnationalized. The international sex trade now has crucial national and global significance. This recourse to the more sophisticated trans-national sex trade by Nigerians has been ascribed to the Edo people of the southern part of the country. This variant of the sex work, as distinct from the local variety, is much more sophisticated in the sense that it is usually suffused with high wire logistics. It involves a highly organised network of international traffickers. Its foreign-currency denominated nature has also succeeded in reinforcing the vocation’s appeal to a multitude of Edo and Nigerian girls. Edo State, predominantly populated by the Bini and its sub-groups, has become the hub of international sex trade in Nigeria and this involves the trafficking of young girls across international borders to serve as foreign exchange-earning sex workers in different countries.

The mid-1980s was significant as a period of broad and deep socio-economic hardship in the history of Nigeria because of the collapse of the economy and the subsequent introduction of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). This period was characterised by the collapse of services, corruption, unemployment, retrenchment, hunger, and desolation. The consequent state of hopelessness is regarded as the cause of the exodus of young Nigerian women to France, Belgium, Spain, the United States of America, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and in particular, Italy.[3] Guest observed that this movement of people across international boundaries began when Nigerian women began travelling to Italy to work on tomato fields in search of their daily bread:

Trafficking prostitutes began in the late 1980s, when Italy was importing immigrant laborers to feed a booming informal economy. Nigerian women began travelling to the central Italian region of Campania to pick tomatoes. Gradually, they were attracted to the large cities of Rome, Naples, and Florence, where they found a high demand for their charms. (So high, in fact, that on one occasion Italian prostitutes publicly protested against the encroachment on their turf by Nigerians.)[4]

Soon the tomato fields could no longer contain these women because of the peculiar nature of extended family support arrangements of the Nigerian people. The most practical expression of the extended family system in Nigeria is mutual help. In many of Nigeria’s ethnic groups, each family comprises a lineage, or part of a lineage, tracing its descent from a common paternal or maternal ancestor. From these spring a pattern of kinship: siblings and their families, their wives and children; broad classification of relatives; and, several dependents. But every lineage will develop accretions outside the lineage since generation after generation every member of the same community become related in some manner or the other. Thus, members of the same community or even the same ethnic group tend to acknowledge the umbilical relationships between them, even when these have become blurred and far-fetched. This practice of looking after the ‘extended family’ almost immediately assumed international dimensions because those who had travelled to Italy and were sending foreign exchange home were sought out to help take their relatives, whether real or contrived with them to “the land of opportunities”. This trend took its cue from the rural-urban migration of the colonial and immediate post-colonial periods in Nigeria where a man or woman who was believed to be doing well in the city was expected to help train his or her siblings; cousins; nephews; nieces and even distant relatives.[5]

Although it is not known exactly when working on tomato farms metamorphosed into sex work since this research is limited to the Nigerian end of the trade, but the prospect of working on tomato farms soon became opportunities on ‘sex farms’. This practice was not peculiar to Nigeria. This form of recruitment practice—through the family network—was also replicated elsewhere in West Africa, [6] and with other forms of migration. More research in the future should be directed to the study and analysis of the extra African dynamics of this change.

The magnitude of the international sex trade was not taken seriously, like most other things in Nigeria, until 1999 when the phenomenon was widely reported on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) network news and by Nigerian newspapers. It became widely known that hundreds of Nigerian women were arrested and repatriated to Nigeria from Italy for sex work. One of the national dailies in its July 9, 2000 edition reported the magnitude of the phenomenon as follows:

According to the Italian consulate in Lagos, there were five flights in 1999, each carrying an average of about 100 girls, and two more this year (2000). The last flight brought back 77 girls from Italy, and 17 from Saudi Arabia. . . . The first mass deportation last March came as a nasty surprise to the Nigerian authorities, who were unprepared for the sudden influx.[7]

The most pronounced reaction to this phenomenon came from the Edo State First Lady, Eki Igbinedion and the wife of the Vice-president; Mrs. Amina Titi Atiku. The Nigerian Ambassador to Italy declared the numbers of women involved in the trade as ten thousand of the forty thousand Nigerians who resides in Italy - a majority of which belong to the Edo stock.[8] When Mrs. Eki Igbinedion—the First Lady of Edo State—visited Italy and confirmed the Ambassador’s claim, she established the Idia Renaissance in 1999.[9] On the path of rectitude, Eki Igbinedion took it upon herself to dissuade the Edo girls from the path of destruction. Her strategies are of great significance due to the adoption of traditional symbolism and history to solve a contemporary socio-economic problem.

Idia Renaissance was named after Queen Idia, a sixteenth century Benin Queen Mother (Iy’Oba). It was set up for the eradication of sex work through the rehabilitation of the deported women and the training of young school leavers in handicraft to discourage the rising trend.[10] Explaining the rationale for naming this pet project after Queen Idia, Eki explained that Idia was known for all that was dignifying to womanhood. A strong woman of note and doting mother, Queen Idia was the mother of Oba (King) Esigie (c.1504 A.D. to 1550 A.D.) of the famous pre-colonial Benin Kingdom. She is said to have been instrumental to her son’s defeat of rival kingdoms in battle and the expansion of the boundaries of the Benin Empire. In recognition of her extraordinary role and unfailing devotion, Oba Esigie designated Idia as the first Iy’Oba or Queen Mother in the history of Edo royalty. The King also ordered the creation of a brass mask of his mother, which in the 20th century was used as the symbol of the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) sponsored by Nigeria in 1977. But can cultural nationalism work as a tool of social critique? Would the sentimental attachment to a glorious past solve the problem of Edo international sex trade? These questions are pertinent because the two contrasted categories of women have little or nothing in common other than being Edo. These two categories of women belong to different classes (the privileged and the deprived), different milieu (sixteenth century and twentieth century), different economic realities (pre-capitalist and capitalist) and different situations.

How valid in contemporary times is the reproduction and recall of a glorious cultural past that has the capacity of masking the material conditions of contemporary existence? This is the main question addressed by this research. The study attempts to evaluate the interface of cultural nationalism and prevailing social and material conditions in a particular Nigerian society. The city of Benin in Edo state of Nigeria has become the hub of the international sex trade in Africa’s most populous nation. Hardly has any week passed in the last couple of years without Bini girls engaged in sex work being deported from abroad, most especially Italy. Although no survey has been carried out yet to ascertain the number of Benin/Edo indigenes abroad, it is commonly believed that almost all the families in the city have one or two children, mostly females, abroad. The pride associated with having children abroad could best be appreciated every Friday, the day usually reserved for burying the dead, when the names of such children are published and broadcast as part of the obituary announcements in newspapers as well as the state-owned and private television and radio stations.[11]

On the premise that the issue of sex work and how to solve the problem transcends sentimental attachment to a glorious past, this work will interrogate the following questions as a means of understanding the problem. Should the ‘Idia Renaissance’ project be seen as an attempt by the privileged class to advance, project and protect its status, rather than a genuine attempt to find solutions to an endemic social and economic problem? Are the girls engaged in sex work really interested in being ‘saved from themselves? How plausible is the attempt to re-invent the Queen Mother in the face of present realities?

This work approaches the study from the perspectives of history and materialist feminism. The fusion of both approaches would enable us understand the interface of historical traditions, and everyday social practices and material social relations. It also integrates both empirical and theoretical approaches and contributes to the process of integrating historical, sociological and feminist analysis. The work should be seen as the beginning of the exploration of the issues it raises since available works have only dealt on the sociology of the problem rather than its historical-social analysis and solution.

Sex and the Benin Empire: An Analysis

Sex work—Igbeagha in Edo language—has been described as the oldest trade in the world. It exists worldwide. Sex work is defined as the commodification of casual sex.[12] It is been associated with urbanization and the kinds of employment/training opportunities available to women in the urban centres. The sex trade had always existed in Nigerian, increasing with the urbanization that accompanied the introduction of colonialism. The commencement of the mass emigration of young Edo women to European countries for the sole purpose of sex work has been traced to the mid 1980s. This period is significant in the history of the Nigerian people, and other African peoples. It was a period of hopelessness where people devised different and multiple means of sustaining life and limb and coping with the economic hardships they faced.[13] A significant number of Nigerians could no longer afford to eat three square meals and so, devised different eating patterns—the 0-0-0, 0-0-1, 0-1-1, 1-0-1, and 1-1-0—as against the 1-1-1, or the three-meal-a-day model.[14] Not only could most parents no longer feed their children, they could not clothe and educate them. The “voices of the poor”[15] were heard but the government remained unresponsive to their problems. In moments of desperation, the Nigerian people resorted to all forms of vices, including armed robbery, advanced fee fraud (419), drug trafficking, embezzlement, varying degrees of child abuse and labour, ritual killings, and sex work. People sacrificed their souls, integrity, names, human body parts of neighbours and relatives to appease the gods of poverty. Invariably, people used what they had to get what they wanted as Nigerian society became highly materialistic during the rule of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, when values degenerated, and wealth was respected; idolized, and seen as the only sign of success. Unfortunately, despite the ‘solutions’ designed to solve their problems, the poor were only able to reproduce themselves rather than transform into an affluent class. The extended family system became one of the impediments, as it did not allow for self-aggrandisement.

The emphasis on prosperity transcended the social realm into the spiritual. In this period, churches witnessed the sprouting of new generation churches, whose teachings were focused on prosperity. The loss of control by parents over their children and wards was prevalent, in part due to a majority of parents losing their jobs and unable to provide the basic needs of their children. In consequence, the children had to fend for themselves. Children as young as five became bus-conductors and street hawkers, some of the boys were introduced to drugs and armed robbery, while the girls were initiated into drugs and sex work.

Sex work was one of the strategies adopted by Edo women to assuage their hopelessness in the face of SAP. The question that comes to mind at this point is whether this is a socio-economic problem peculiar to Edo people in Nigeria. The answer is no. Other questions include: why did Edo girls resort to sex work? Is sex work an accepted practice by the Edo? Finally, does the international sex trade from Nigeria accommodate only Edo women?

The critics who have argued that Edo state is only one of the thirty-six states in Nigeria and cannot be the only state hit by the economic crunch of the country prompted these questions. They believe that the resort to international sex work as a means of sustenance in the gloomy economic climate of Nigeria is deeply rooted in the cultural fabric of the society. Being a local manifestation of a contemporary hot issue that attracts global interest, debates on the involvement of the Edo people in international sex work abound on several websites. This paper would only examine the debates on Edofolks.com. At this site, a contributor asked the question: Is sex work part of Edo history and culture? This contributor identified him/herself as OKN and went further to quote some historical documents highlighting the prevalence of promiscuity in the Edo cultural history. OKN cited Dapper, where it was stated that:

These Negroes (Edo people) are much more civilized than others on this coast. They are people who have good laws and a well-organized police; who live on good terms with the Dutch and other foreigners who come to trade among them, and showed them a thousand marks of friendship. Deceiving and drunkenness are not their principal faults but rather lechery. [16]

Prince Ademola Iyi-Eweka, a Benin prince, responded to the quote and the question that: “Dapper was using his Judeo/Christian values of Europe of his day, to describe what he saw in Benin-Polygamy”. This denies the existence of sex work in pre-colonial Edo society. Adam Jones’ Olfert Dapper’s Description of Benin (1668) reported some semblance of sex work amongst the Edo:

Each man marries as many wives as he wants and can feed, and he has a great number of concubines over and above these. They wallow in lust and voluptuousness, but a white man or Christian has difficulty in finding a whore, for fear of punishment, because it is forbidden on pain of death. . . . A daughter is not given in marriage by her father until she is twelve or fourteen years old, after which time she is no longer his concern. After a man dies, all the wives with whom he has slept become the king’s and are given again in marriage by him; but those with whom he has not slept go to the son to keep or are taken by others as wives. It sometimes happens also that the king does not marry off some of these women but makes them regetaires. These are women who must deliver to his treasury annually a certain number of cowries. Having nothing to fear from men’s authority, these women choose as many lovers as they like and play the harlot lustily, as married women also do sometimes. These regetaires, when they come pregnant outside marriage and bear a son, are freed from having to make these payments; but if one of them has a daughter, the king gives the girl as a wife to someone or other.[17]

Prince Eweka holds the view that since most societies in what became Nigeria in 1914 were not monetized, there was no possibility of sex-for-money and a term for it. But, in the book A Short History of Benin, written by the foremost Benin historian, Egharevba argues that although the society was not monetized, there were other media that acted as storage of wealth instead of money. Egharevba told a story of adultery in the Benin Kingdom that might answer OKN’s question. This story is particularly important because it is the genesis of Queen Idia’s pre-eminence in the Edo kingdom, and indeed one of the reasons for the elevation of the position of the Queen Mother (Iy’Oba) in Benin to date. According to Egharevba, Esigie (Queen Idia’s son) fought a war at Idah between 1515 and 1516. The war was caused by the Oliha (a titled Benin chief) who had a beautiful wife named Imaguero. The Oliha had proudly told the Oba and other people that his wife was the most faithful woman in the whole kingdom.

The Oba was said to have responded that “women were not trustworthy”,[18] and to prove that Imaguero was no exception the Oba asked one of his porters (Ike) to go with some coral and agate beads to entice her. On receiving the beads, the woman not only committed adultery with the King’s potter, but also left her husband’s home to reside in her father’s house where Ike had free and easy access to her. The Oba made her confess to her unfaithfulness to the Oliha’s face. This irked the Oliha who ordered her strangulation and waged war against the Oba on the side of the King of Idah. It was during this war that Queen Idia got involved in the political life of the Benin Kingdom. She ordered her men from Uselu to Idah, under the leadership of her head slave. Her men captured Idah and this won for her, the admiration of her son. Thus, in appreciation of her initiatives he made her the first Iy’Oba of Benin Kingdom and ordered that her mask be made.[19]

From Egharevba’s account, it can be inferred that there was such a prevalence of adultery in Benin, that the King did not believe any Edo woman could possibly be adultery-free. Also, the women collected some form of compensation in return for their escapades; and the Dapper’s assertion that they were lecherous may not be an exaggeration after all. Although there is some evidence of permissive attitude by the Edo people toward sex in a cross-section of historical documentation on the kingdom, and Thomas Hodgkin also reported them as being libidinous,[20] there is also evidence that contradicts the permissiveness thesis. Thus, P.C. Lloyd in his book, The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking peoples of South-western Nigeria, describes pre-colonial marriage practices of the Edo people as putting great store on chastity. He stated that in pre-colonial Benin, most girls were betrothed to their future husbands at infancy or childhood. Seven days after the wedding (usually after puberty) the bride’s mother visits the couple to demand the white cloth on which the newlyweds slept on the first post-marital night. If there was a bloodstain on the cloth, the girl was believed to be a virgin. Her mother was presented with gifts and the groom also entertained her.

The only reference made by Lloyd to promiscuity was the fact that the Itsekiri were stereotyped as promiscuous, but he disagreed with this categorization, saying that many Urhobo and Ibo sex workers claimed to be Itsekiri to enhance their status.[21] The Urhobos and Itsekiris together with present day Edo state had belong to the former Bendel state. The Ibos are the neighbours of the Edo people. Prince Eweka in his response to OKN argued that the Ibo played a great part in the institutionalisation of sex work in Benin. He defended Edo womanhood, attributing the monetization of sex in Edo land to the presence of women from Nsukka (an Ibo community). Thus, to a large extent Prince Eweka accepted the proliferation of sex work in Edo state but blamed it on the Ibo people of South-eastern Nigeria.[22] Some other people in Benin have agreed with Prince Eweka on this assertion but also included Ghanaians among the complicit.[23]

It is evident from the various accounts of Edo history that some semblance of sex work is part of Edo history but could not be said to be part of the Edo culture. The punishment meted out to Imaguero is one indicator of its non-acceptability in the culture of the Edo people. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that sex work is not a way of life of the Edo people but a means to an end since people participate in it in order to access material needs and desires.

It could also be argued that the acceptance of sex work in the society was one of the factors responsible for Edo girls and women’s use of sex work as a way out of the economic malaise that characterised Nigeria’s peripheral economy. Sex work was accepted because it provided more money than an average person earned per day. The Edo people are mostly farmers, traders, and craft workers. Most wage earners are employed in the informal sector. The state also has a few factories, but they cannot employ a large number of the workforce. Life became unbearable for majority of Nigerians with the mass retrenchment of people in compliance with the directives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Different coping strategies were adopted to assuage their sufferings. The Edo people adopted sex work as a way out. To this end, sex work could be seen as some form of empowerment. Margaret Hall holds the view that women’s empowerment comprises “both a personal strengthening and enhancement of life chances and collective participation in efforts to achieve equality of opportunity and equity between different genders, ethnic groups, social classes, and age groups.”[24] The Edo girls and women saw the world through perspectives that had different values and constructed new social realities[25] for improving their life chances. Given the abdication of responsibility for its people’s welfare by the Nigerian government, they saw sex work as a means to achieving equal opportunity for themselves and their families. Sex work became a sort of social and economic leveller. The impoverished women who took up sex work took their destinies into their own hands in a country where success was measured by one’s ability to build a house, own a business, ride an expensive car, wear expensive clothing, and fund one’s children’s private school education since the public schools were not equipped to meet the needs of late twentieth/twenty-first century students. The Edo girls and women only took a cue from a popular radio jingle that admonished the citizens not to ask what the nation can do for them but what they can do for the nation. They earned foreign exchange for the government through remittances and created job/business opportunities for owners of business centres who provided multiple services that connected migrants with those left behind.

Sex to the Edo girl and woman is no longer a ‘big deal’.[26] It is deployed to meet basic survival needs in line with the saying: ‘man pikin go survive’.[27] Sex work (local/international), drug trafficking, advance fee fraud/419, armed robbery, and human trafficking were some of the vices through which some Nigerians found succour from the prolonged economic malaise of their country.

The Different Faces of Sex work

Sex work became one of the solutions to the depressed economy of a people. Some moved from villages to the towns, some from towns to the cities, some from the cities to the capital cities, and soon, sex work assumed the status of commonplace goods for trade and export. Although every Nigerian state has its quota in the illicit trade, majority of the people caught in the web of international trafficking for the sex trade across international borders are said to be of Edo origin, since the state tops the list by 80 percent.[28]

Several reasons have been adduced for the involvement of Edo girls in the international sex trade as a coping strategy for survival. Some of these reasons are poverty and inadequate job opportunities. Another is greed. For instance, in the case of Ghanaian sex workers reported by Alfred Neequaye in his article - “Prostitution in Accra”; there are different faces of sex work, and diverse reasons for engaging in sex work. Prominent amongst these reasons was the issue of poverty.[29] According to Neequaye:

It is of vital importance to consider the social factors that lead women to become prostitutes and also lead men to visit them. One of the most important is the lack of education for women, both formal and vocational, which means that they are unskilled. Such women, if they have economic resources, traditionally engage in trading. If they have no such resources or lose them for some reason, they may have no alternative but to enter prostitution. One reason for loss of economic support is the death of a spouse or a marital split.[30]

Neequaye further affirms that poverty induced by disinheritance has proved to be a significant cause of prostitution:

the traditional method of inheritance in Ghana whereby a widow does not take over her husband’s property and may be turned out of his house if he dies intestate. . . . Prostitution can be therefore considered as a by-product of economic constraints in Ghana and generally in the developing world. . . . Due to the general economic situation, many young men have insufficient money to marry and may therefore feel the need to visit prostitutes. Young women, even those with some education, may be unable to find work. Those jobs which are available, for example clerical jobs, do not provide sufficient remuneration to live on.[31]

To the contrary, another school of thought disagrees with the poverty thesis and proposed greed and moral lassitude the major reason why young Nigerian women have been attracted to local and or international sex work:

Nigeria is currently witnessing an outburst of prostitution in a way comparable to Western societies, where the sex trade has posed a moral challenge. The alarming dimension of prostitution in Nigeria can be seen not only through the proliferation of brothels and hotels for sex workers in most urban centres but also in the increasing of prostitution rings in the country. Before, when one thought of where to see commercial sex workers, the first port of call was usually our hotels. But today, drinking joints, restaurants, (university) campuses, street corners, relaxation centres, among others, have become a citadel of the sex trade. The most confusing is that most of the sex hawkers now even hire their own accommodation for the business. Some stay with their parents and operate from there.[32]

Ofido went further to identify the different categories of sex workers in Nigeria:

Campus prostitution is the most disturbing nowadays. Female students are classified as “big chicks, because of their high taste, are mainly involved in this perverse act. Every weekend the campuses are turned into a hive of men and exotic cars, all looking for female students who ought to face their studies squarely . . . the underlying factor for prostitution is greed. Of course, not all girls, in spite of their poverty have engaged in the act of prostitution. Today, many women want to make it overnight without hard work but through their God-given body, believing that the end justifies the means. Such women of easy virtue . . . are walking the corridors of power, government offices and business organizations looking for contracts. These women believing in “bottom power”, would not mind sleeping with these men, in as much as they can secure contracts in order to wear fashionable clothes, drive flashy cars, or go out with mobile phones, live in exotic accommodation that are well-furnished.[33]

Local sex work is evident in all corners of Nigeria. Sex work in Nigeria is caused by a combination of poverty and greed, and in very rare cases, the love of adventure. The practice of humanity’s oldest vocation cuts across all classes and age. It cuts across the rich and the poor, the educated and illiterate, school dropouts and graduates, undergraduate and graduate, employed and unemployed, young, and old. The charge for services rendered depends on the status and level of sophistication of the sex workers. Their statuses and level of sophistication are determined by their educational qualification, dressiness, and age. All these factors influence what they demand and receive as payment for their services.

Although the character of the international sex work is deemed exploitative in nature, it is believed to have enhanced the social status of its beneficiaries since they were paid in “hard currencies” or European currency that is exchange-able for a great deal of Nigerian money, unlike their local counterparts who ply their trade in naira—the local currency—usually at the mercy of high inflation. The girls and women who enter into the international variant of this trade are recruited through friends, agencies, and family members, and are trafficked from Nigeria either directly to their foreign base or indirectly through neighbouring countries like Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, and Ivory Coast. The hardships involved and exploitative nature of the trade is expected to yield dividends when the proceeds are eventually remitted and are utilised to take care of the problems of kith and kin. It affords the family the opportunity to build modest and magnificent houses, access potable water by sinking private boreholes, and live a more affluent lifestyle, which can be immediately demonstrated by buying expensive cars. The more successful the sex worker abroad, the better her family’s lifestyle, and the higher their standard of living.

Patterns of Trafficking

There are two identifiable group involved in the International sex trade: (a) the voluntary category and (b) the involuntary or reluctant/unwilling. The voluntary category: Seventy percent of the girls trafficked to Europe are believed to go of their own volition, knowing the consequences of their actions.[34] As with the Ghanaian case reported by Neequaye, the Edo girls were lured by the lifestyles of their relatives who returned to Nigeria when they buried their relatives, return for Christmas, Easter and other local festivities[35] and by the houses built by the Italos (Nigerian sex workers located in Italy) and the reported foreign exchange they showered on their relatives. These successful relatives recruited them either at the instance of their parents who sought their “help” to take their wards with them when they returned to Europe, or by the girls themselves. The reluctant/unwilling sex workers: This category falls squarely within the group of young girls who found themselves lured or shoved into sex work by trusted ‘mentors’ who had other motives for being ‘kind’ to them as family, friends, neighbours, Aunts or just mere ‘good Samaritans’ who promised to help them find good jobs abroad. Such girls never set out to become sex workers but were then taken abroad and turned into sex slaves. They remained victims of this obnoxious trade because their travel documents were usually in the custody of their mentors.

Quite a majority belonged to the voluntary category. As mentioned earlier, African families are large, loving, and extended groups, that support its members in need. This coin—large African families—like every other coin is two-sided. Regarding trafficking, the other side of the coin, to an outsider, does not portray love. This is because some Nigerian girls have been "traded" to traffickers by their own parents and relatives—sometimes without their knowledge.[36] To an outsider, it might be contemptuous that family members know the distasteful nature of the businesses in which their daughters would be involved in Europe, but to the insider, the involvement was approved and believed to be for the good of all concerned. The action taken is often justified as a family merely using what they had to get what they needed. The pattern of trafficking, the route and the barons are not necessarily known, but the accounts of those caught on their way or those who escaped or were repatriated provided some explanations to the modus operandi of this clandestine trade.[37] Some of those caught on their way to Italy in January 2001, according to Alao made the following comments:

Mabel, said she was lured into the decision to leave Nigeria explained that she was ignorant of what she was into, according to her, she learnt fashion/designing after she left primary school. “My intention was to set up my business of fashion/designing. But the financial situation of my parents could not make the dream to materialise. It was in the course of this confusion that I met Chike, who said I should come down to Lagos, that in Lagos, I can save money and eventually set up my business.” It was, however, only when she got to Lagos with her colleagues that it dawned on them that they would go to Benin Republic from where somebody would take them to Europe. . . . (They) were brought to Lagos with the aim of taking them to Benin Republic. At Cotonou, a Nigerian woman simply called Fally was said to be the head of the syndicate, who would have received them on arrival . . . it was from Cotonou that the travel documents of the three girls would have been procured before their moving to Italy.[38]

Alao also identified the routes and mode of recruitment:

. . . another set of Nigerian girls were deported from Malabo; the capital city of Equatorial Guinea, including a young man who was allegedly paid a huge sum of money….These girls were reportedly being taken to Malabo by Chidiebere Onuekwusi, the anchor man of the deed, had reportedly collected money from the girls (aged 17, 18, and 22), and prepared fake documents in Malabo for the girls to travel to Italy/Spain.[39]

Alao identified two routes—the first, Lagos to Cotonou to Italy and the second, Malabo via eastern Nigeria to Italy/Spain while Dimeji identified Ejigbo (Osun state—south western Nigeria) to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire as the transit route before the sex workers were taken to Europe.[40] Another 17-year-old Nigerian girl was taken through yet another circuitous smuggler’s route through Ghana, Ivory Coast, England and Germany before a train deposited her near the Swiss border, where a woman took her from her escort and confiscated her passport.[41] These accounts show that the network involved wholesalers who recruit from Nigeria and take the women and girls to middlemen in other West African countries. The middlemen procure travel documents from the country of departure, and the final consumer; the pimp, receives the girls in Europe and confiscates their passports before giving the girls’ a clearer picture of the deal. The pimp is popularly known as the ‘Madam’, and she is usually a Nigerian and an ex-prostitute. It is not known why the traffickers did not take direct flights from the Murtala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos to their Italian destinations. But, it is apparent that the non-use of Nigeria’s most popular international airport is probably due to the fact that it is not (at most times) in the interest of the stakeholders because airport officials are uncooperative.

There are deep-rooted interests in this trade in Nigeria and Italy and indeed in other European countries where these women and girls are taken. Persons in whose interest this trade must endure, include: parents, family members, traditional/native doctors, lawyers, immigration officers, police, evangelists of some ‘prosperity churches’ and of course, the traffickers and those who patronise them in Italy. These interests cannot be ignored if lasting solution to the problem is sought. Those concerned in this trade have continued to devise means of staying in business.

A majority of these girls/women leave for Europe with their parents’ and families’ consent. Some, their husbands had nudged in that direction.[42] The parents/relatives often earn foreign exchange from their daughters’ trade in Europe. It is reported for instance, that every morning, relatives flock the post offices to send and receive parcels to and from Italy. The Benin office of Western Union (where remittances arrive from Europe) is said to be the company’s busiest in Nigeria. Finally, some of the most beautiful houses in Benin were built from the proceeds of human trafficking for the sex trade—and this is common knowledge.[43]

Traditional doctors also benefited from the illicit trade; they (traditional priests) are sought to give approval, blessing, and ensure the compliance of the victim. They use oaths and curses to hold the girls to their promises. This is usually done at a traditional “shrine” where the priest took something personal from the girl or woman’s body. It might be hair from her head, some pubic hair, a nail clipping, or some underwear.[44] A concoction was made of these materials, and the priest left no doubt that it will be used to control the victim from a distance. This use of traditional spiritual means was a way of keeping the girl’s in bondage and it prevented them from revealing the identity of the barons. One campaigner described these priests as "greedy charlatans who deserve to be behind bars."[45] But this practice has been very effective because of the widespread belief in the efficacy of such traditional religious practices amongst the Edo and other Nigerian peoples. The existence of the practice was confirmed when Mrs. Esther Eboreime—an Edo woman, was arrested at the Murtala International Airport in Lagos, in possession of ritual materials, sent to her from Spain. It was evident from her interaction with law enforcement agencies that she believed in the rituals because she refused to divulge any information on what the parcels were meant for and who had sent them to her. Her arrest was described thus:

At a time when Nigerians abroad send money back home through Western Union, a Nigerian based in Spain has sent home instead of money a luggage of trouble. The luggage of trouble has not only landed the receiver in deep trouble, it has opened the eyes of National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) to a new vista in the illicit trade. . . . Officials of Nigerian Customs and Immigration Services were shell-shocked when the bag addressed to Esther was ripped open during a routine check and saw that the bag was laden with weapons of human trafficking. They were astonished to discover that the bag contained pornographic pictures, (49 pieces), pubic hair, virginal (sic) discharge, finger nails, menstrual pads, discharge pads, immigration records, payment records, and agreement of debt bondage, all wrapped in batches with the names of the owners. . . . She (Esther Eboreime) simply refused to spill the beans on her connection with Spain from where the ‘satanic goods’ was sent to Nigeria.[46]

That was not all. Unscrupulous lawyers also benefit from arranging contracts between traffickers and the Edo girls:

Once a girl is hooked by a trafficker, a “contract” is drawn up under which she agrees to pay a sum of money in exchange for the chance to travel abroad. The sums involved can amount to thousands of U.S. dollars. Many times the contracts are drawn up by phony lawyers. They rarely mention the real destination, just in case a girl is courageous enough to charge for breach of contract.[47]

A deportee shed light on the part played by lawyers in this trade. Kate Guobadia —a Benin yam seller, had gone to Europe for sex work under the stolen identity of Uwaifo Osadebamwen. She said a lawyer procured for her the passport with which she travelled to Amsterdam. The said lawyer had warned her that he was going to deny ever meeting her and accuse her of stealing the passport in the event of any crisis. Kate was introduced to the lawyer by a trafficker named Trolley in Benin. Trolley provided all the travel documents: visa, ticket and the stolen passport. Osadebamwen’s passport had been selected because it was assumed she was Kate’s look-alike, but the Dutch Immigration officers were not convinced and Kate was deported. However, the Nigerian Immigration Officers had allowed Kate to leave Nigeria and travel to Amsterdam because Trolley had spoken to them in the language they understood—bribery.[48]

Self-styled evangelists from the ‘prosperity churches’ are not left out of the international sex trade. They are paid to pray for the safe passage of the girls, while the customs and immigration officials have been known to take bribes to look the other way. All of these people benefit from this trade and have vested interests in the continuation of the trafficking of young Nigerian girls and women to Europe.[49]

The young girls and women are recruited by agents through friends and families and received in Europe by pimps who lay down the rules of the business in clear terms. This facet of the trade is not gender-biased. The agents were both male and female.[50] On arrival in Europe, the girls’ passports were seized and they were told how much money they were expected to earn before they could gain their independence. They are also blackmailed. The trafficked Edo girls had to earn amounts like fifty thousand U.S. dollars ($50,000 or £30,000) from sex work, or be accused and reported to the police as illegal immigrants. It was estimated that to earn these amounts, they would have had sex with several partners a day for three years. Girls who travelled, knowing what their vocation was going to be in Europe, readily got down to work. But those who were tricked into sex work usually became uncooperative when they got to Europe, as some really did believe they were going to gain legitimate employment. Sometimes, an uncooperative attitude was rewarded with death. The wife of the Governor of Edo State, Mrs. Eki Igbinedion, announced that 116 sex workers were killed in Italy between 1994 and 1998. Stephan Farris, Women’s e-news correspondent, also stated that 189 female sex workers were killed in 1999. These deaths were attributed to the ignorance of these immigrant sex workers who were especially defenceless, often ignorant of local laws and subject to threats of deportation and criminal prosecution.[51]

Mrs. Eki Igbinedion is one of the few Edo women who have been embarrassed by this appalling status of the Edo woman and outspoken about putting an end to Bini women’s involvement in the international sex trade. In her bid to find a solution to the problem, she focused her energies and used her influence as First Lady to bring attention to the problem. Through the Idia Renaissance, she sought to put an end to the international sex trade by Edo girls and women in Europe and to discourage young girls who have the ambition of becoming Italos.

Idia: Contemporary and Historical Symbolism

Mrs. Eki Igbinedion, who has been described as not only regal but aloof,[52] First Lady of Edo State, was said to have initiated the Idia Renaissance under embarrassing circumstances. She had been invited to a meeting of governors’ wives by the First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs. Stella Obasanjo, and was deeply ashamed when Edo State was derisively described as Nigeria’s capital of sex work. Against this unsavoury scenario created by the negative popularity of Edo State, Mrs. Eki Igbinedion in 1999 made the eradication of sex work a priority project. To achieve this lofty aim, she set up a Non-Governmental Organisation, which she called the Idia Renaissance. Explaining the rationale for naming the project after Queen Idia, a sixteenth century Bini Queen Mother,[53] she claimed that Idia was known for all that was dignifying to womanhood.

The primary objective of Idia Renaissance was to champion the campaign for the re-awakening of the consciousness of the average Edo woman to some healthy values as a way of combating modern social vices such as international trafficking in women and girls, drug abuse, and violent activities among the youth. Idia Renaissance, apart from initiating and pursuing a mass enlightenment campaign to eradicate the international traffic in women, has the conviction that these social problems have no place in the African socio-cultural practices that always emphasize high-quality values of self-esteem, moral decency, and respect for constituted authority. She aimed to accomplish this by re-integrating the victims of the international sex trade into the society. This she was going to achieve through the establishment of Skills Acquisition Centres to provide economic empowerment for young boys, girls, and women, particularly those repatriated from abroad. Skills acquired at the centres include: computer/secretarial studies, home economics, hairdressing, cosmetology, and fashion design/tailoring.[54] The Idia Renaissance project also includes counselling services for victims of repatriation.[55] Eki Igbinedion organized awareness programs to create the consciousness among Edo women of the evil of international commercial sex trade. Mrs. Igbinedion through this project mobilised the support of all segments of the Edo community in her campaign.[56] Unfortunately, quite a number of Edo people did not share her ideals. They have demonstrated hostility towards her program, abused her and even spat at her in public to register their resentment of her activities.[57] Mrs. Osaretin Osagie said the reason for these attitudes was not farfetched:

She (Mrs. Igbinedion) would continue to get such treatments from people, because she does not know what it means to be poor. Now that people can build houses, eat, and send their children to schools, she has said those children who have been assisting their parents, should be deported. You know rich people do not like competition; they want to be the only ones who can travel abroad. She wants to take away peoples happiness and means of livelihood.[58]

Mrs. Osagie’s response was also shared by Frank Guobadia, a contributor to the popular Edo website—Edofolks.com, who said Mrs. Igbinedion did not get peoples’ support because she had not addressed the problem:

Mrs. Igbinedion is dealing with the “what” and that explains why her effort is yielding no positive result. She is really supposed to deal with the “why” of the problem. The “what” is prostitution – and so what? But the “why” is how did Edo girls that were so reserved in the past suddenly become commodities in the sex export?[59]

Frank believes Edo girls, and indeed all those involved in sex work could only be redeemed when Nigeria emerges as the country of “our collective dream.”[60] Mrs. Eki Igbinedion had to deal with these and similar responses in her drive to rid Edo State of the stigma of the international sex trade. She presumed that invoking Queen Idia’s name was a good avenue to gain the support of the Edo people but the people thought differently. According to Madam Uwalia Eboigbe, who was interviewed on October 14, 2003:

Why would she invoke the name Idia and think it will help her cause? Idia is like her (Eki Igbinedion). Idia was not a poor women searching for a means of livelihood. She only needed to tap her fingers for yams and it would be laid at her feet. Idia did what she had to do, to save her sons life and his throne. Those who have children abroad, either for prostitution or anything else they do there, have also done so to look after their children and better their lives. At least they are not stealing.[61]

Thus, Edo people have apparently not accepted this project because it is believed that Mrs. Igbinedion has not identified herself with the average Edo woman and does not understand her plight.

Idia Renaissance: A Critique

The identity of a people, asserted Maryon McDonald, is a product of the contemporary structural context in which it exists.[62] This confirms the position of materialist feminist ideology, which identifies the material conditions under which social arrangements including those of gender hierarchy develop.

The use of Idia as symbol in a contemporary socio-economic milieu characterised by acute competition for privileged status and primitive accumulation, is totally contradictory when juxtaposed with the historical milieu in which the Queen Mother existed. By her circumstances and status, Queen Idia was privileged, powerful, and comfortable. From available evidence, she was at no point in time confronted with the need for material re-empowerment, which seems to be the lot of the Edo international sex workers in the contemporary period. The only area of convergence between Queen Idia and the Edo girls is the obvious defence of their socio-economic and their material well-being as an article of faith. While Queen Idia was ready to defend and advance the interest of her son, the king, the mothers of the Edo girls’ have in a similar fashion, risen in defence of their daughters’ vocation and status. They take steps to defend their turf by forming the Association of Mothers of Italo Women and by publicly cursing those who do not wish their “hardworking” daughters’ well.[63] There is an obvious misalignment in using Idia as a yardstick. As Ogbomo has eloquently put it:

It might be hoped that the Queen mother could stand for women’s rights. However, she remained as mere tokenism. As the biological mother of the monarch, she became more concerned with her son’s power and position, and therefore her own, than she might have been with the rights of women. [64]

It is then no wonder that Edo women have not shared Mrs. Eki Igbinedion’s sentimental attachment to the cultural figure of Queen Idia. Though Edo women as recorded by history admired her bravery, Queen Idia and what she stood for are not considered liberating factors in contemporary times. In an inverse way they had looked on her as a figure, that represented motherhood; doing all in her might to look after and shield what was hers. Looking at it from this angle, the Edo parents who resented Igbinedion could be said to have learnt some lessons from Queen Idia. Queen Idia used what she had (her army of slaves) to get what she wanted (the realization of her son’s ambition victory in the war and the expansion of the Benin Kingdom). They have similarly stood their ground in shielding their children from the enemy, those who oppose their material and social advancement, using the means available to them.

Edo People and the Sex Trade

Reactions from the Edo homeland to the adventures of Edo girls abroad have ranged from the indignant to the absurd. International sex work has been vehemently condemned by the Benin monarch, Omo ‘N’Oba Erediuawa. As the symbol and custodian of Benin’s tradition and culture he had supported the crusade against the trade, in the papers, on the radio and television. But it was obvious that not everyone had accepted the crusade against the trade as an article of faith. The position of Chief D.U. Edebiri, the Esogbon of Benin was quite instructive. This has to be quoted in extenso:

The Omo N’Oba has spoken against international prostitution, but to some of us, we have our reservation. I, as a person, I have my own personal reservation on that very topic. I am not at all forcy (sic) about it. I do not see what it means really. I do not consider it a problem because there are many problems that require government attention; international prostitution is not as bad as cocaine trafficking. People still engage in that. International prostitution is not as bad as armed banditry. People are assassinated everyday. International, national or local prostitution is also a product of the type of society in which we find ourselves, so I do not see what really is wrong with whatever, call it by whatever name, I do not see what is wrong with it. I say this as Chief D. U. Edebiri, the Esogbon of Benin. I am not speaking for the kingdom on this matter. I believe there are more pressing issues needing government attention and two, I believe that the method being adopted has compounded the issue to the extent that Benin city as a city is now under siege.[65]

He further asserted:

Many people do not know you cannot solve a problem by creating new ones, you will agree with that government’s approach to this issue has created more problems than what it has gone out to solve. For example, people are now deported from everywhere in the globe be it Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia whatever. The moment they know that you are a Nigerian or a Benin man or woman, you are deported, and this deportation is not restricted to the girls, both boys and girls are affected. Now these people are brought here, even the girl that you would say they should repatriate, this time around, it is not the host country that is complaining, but we here, are saying repatriate these people. You bring them into a vacuum, nothing; there is no industry in Edo State today that employs up to 200 people. When you bring this people here, they have no jobs. If they have become HIV patients somewhere, they should have been spreading it there (general laughter). They come home and start spreading it that is a problem by itself. And then both girls and boys and those people repatriated from these places, every one of them, has a gun. Consequently armed banditry or robbery or assassination or whatever you call it has assumed a proportion that is never known to this country. [66]

He concluded that:

. . . by bringing these boys and girls to live without providing jobs for them here, you create more social disorders, you create social unrest, you create indiscriminate killing of people. I would have suggested that the home base should be properly put right, first, build industries, build factories, as you are bringing these people, put them up somewhere. But if that is not done and you are bringing people indiscriminately, you dump them. As a matter of fact, if you repatriate them today, by next week they are no longer here (general laughter). They are no longer here because you have no means of controlling them. They have gone back. It can not be stamped out by making a motion in that place. “Ring Road” (general laughter) Prostitution is not a new phenomenon. It has yielded this international dimension because of bad government at home . . . the people who are fighting international prostitution pay lip service to developmental activities at home. Nothing is happening. I heard on the radio that some people are active administrators, active governors, active presidents but this are mere radio something, nothing is really happening here and I want to be so quoted that nothing is happening. Pensioners are not paid, teachers are not paid, salaries of workers are not paid, yet you want to come and compound the situation by bringing people who are well placed overseas to join the group.[67]

It is not known if Chief Edebiri had benefited from the International sex trade, but he made clear his mockery of the Idia Renaissance, a position taken by quite a number of Edo people. Igbinedion’s bid to pass a law against traffickers and parents of trafficked sex workers at the State House of Assembly was thrown out and people rained curses on those who wanted the Bill passed. In support of the trade, a popular Edo singer wrote a hit song celebrating the wealth of a famous Italo; Dupay, praising her generosity in funding the passage of other younger women to acquire fame, wealth, and prominence. In Benin, sex work in Italy or elsewhere in Europe has become an entirely tolerable trade.[68] According to Grace Osakue: “It’s not a stigma any more, as long as money comes in. If they come back with money, they are respected. If they come back poor, they are sex workers, they are failures.”[69]

Conclusion

Sex work has become a tolerated if not a consciously promoted phenomenon in Benin, a response to prevailing socio-economic realities. It is regarded as “a way of poverty alleviation”.[70] In the face of the basic effects of SAP, insurmountable urban problems such as massive immigration, widespread unemployment, infrastructural decay, fiscal depletion, and decline the decline of the manufacturing sector[71], Edo people exploited international sex work as a way out of their quagmire. Sex work is not one of the accepted norms of the Edo people but some cultural practices of the people had tolerated sex work and these have been reinforced for economic reasons.

The re-invention of tradition—the Queen Mother—by Mrs. Eki Igbinedion is not enough to put an end to sex work. This lofty ideal could only be achieved if genuine connections are made with people’s actual experiences,[72] not as a cause that denies their validity as women since a prostitute is the antithesis of the cultural ideal of a woman.[73] Some have criticized Eki Igbinedion for grandstanding. Nigeria, they said, has a long tradition of First Ladies who latched onto the latest fashionable cause, which dies with the end of their tenure. Trafficking in women and children for sex work and child labour had become the fad, and this has seen the involvement of the wife of the Vice President of Nigeria, Mrs. Titi Abubakar, who had also created her own Non-Governmental Organization; the Women Trafficking and Child Labor Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF). There are two problems with these initiatives, said critics. First, the programs of First Ladies rarely last. Second, they tend to snuff out the kind of patient, bottom-up efforts needed to eradicate practices that are deeply embedded in a society.[74]

The Idia Renaissance and indeed WOTCLEF are not believed to offer solutions to the problems of sex work in Edo state and indeed Nigeria. This is because such projects in Nigeria usually lack continuity. The programs of First Ladies have all ended with their husband’s tenure in office. The Idia Renaissance project should thus be seen as an attempt to advance, project and protect the status of the upper class in Edo state, rather than a genuine attempt to find solutions to an endemic social and economic problem.

The crisis of sex work is a socio-economic one. This is a fundamental problem that needs to be solved from its root: poverty. The deportees believed the noise about women trafficking was uncalled for.[75] Since these deported girls did not return to the country of their own volition, they were most uncooperative in the resettlement efforts of the non-governmental agencies. Most of them have been known to go back to their countries of deportation or other European or African countries.[76] Those who have gone abroad for sex work believe it is something they had to do to save them from the poverty and unemployment that permeates the country—a country that is rife with an army of beggars, and school leavers at all levels that have not been gainfully employed. Recourse to the past is not enough to solve contemporary problems when the juxtaposed situations of the past and present have little or nothing in common. Womanhood in Edo society has only undergone change like every other phenomenon in the age of modernity. Edo womanhood has redefined home and family within the exigencies of meeting the basic needs and requirement of home and family. The logical conclusion one can draw from this is that both Edo society and Nigeria now have to cope with a new generation of parents and children with an almost mechanical attitude to sex and material acquisition, throwing the old traditional precepts of chastity and dignity of womanhood overboard.

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Notes

Citation Format:

Oluwakemi A. Adesina. “Between Culture and Poverty: The Queen Mother Phenomenon and the Edo International Sex Trade” JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: Issue 8, 2006.

Copyright © 2006 Africa Resource Center, Inc.