Abraham who led a protest for sex workers' rights in Lagos
recently. Found the report on Al Jazeera. Read and be
amazed...:-)
Patoo Abraham has become famous for fighting for the
rights of prostitutes, but what she - and those she is
trying to help - do to make a living is illegal and
frowned upon by many in the country.
Abraham is not only proud of her profession but is also
campaigning to ensure that prostitution is legalised and
that sex workers are respected in Africa's most
populous country.
The 48-year-old has led a couple of protests in Lagos,
Nigeria's commercial capital, demanding the rights of
prostitutes in a country where sex vendors suffer
physical harm at the hands of their punters. Continue...
Under the auspices of different organisations, scores of
prostitutes marched on the streets of Lagos, chanting
provocative slogans.
This boldness is unprecedented, and the protesters carried
their signature red umbrellas and T-shirts with the
inscription "Sex work is work, we need our rights."
"We are tired of dying in silence," Abraham, who heads the
Nigerian chapter of African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA),
told Al Jazeera. "We want to be able to practise our
profession with pride like every other person. We want an
end to name-calling and stigmatisation. We are sex
workers and not asawo [a Yoruba derogatory name for
prostitutes]."
Sex work, said Abraham, is normal work and that there are
"sex workers everywhere under one form of disguise or the
other". "[The] government should stop criminalising our
work," said the woman who is also the president of the
Women of Power Initiative (WOPI), a non-governmental
organisation established to advance the cause of sex work
in Nigeria.
Although Nigeria has posted impressive economic growth,
overtaking South Africa to become Africa's largest
economy, unemployment remains widespread and many
Nigerian women have ended up working as prostitutes in
part because they cannot find work.
Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in April that no
fewer than 5.3 million youths are jobless, and the World
Bank last year put the number of Nigerians living in
destitution at 100 million.
Sister's advice
With large earrings and a face flamboyantly made up,
Abraham sat in her busy office, which she shares with
another organisation, and told Al Jazeera how she took the
advice of her sister, a former prostitute, when life as a
single parent became too tough for her.
Though reluctant then, she now sees it as any other
business and has no regrets.
"Just as you are proud of your profession, that is how I am
proud of mine. Just as you are respected for being a
journalist, that is how I want to be respected," said
Abraham.
Abraham uses the pseudonym "Patoo" in her daily work - a
name she chose to hide her identity when she began work
as a prostitute.
She said her two children - a son and a daughter - are at
university and she pays tuition fees for them. They do not
know her occupation, she said, although she marched on
the streets of Lagos for all to see.
In this oil-rich country of more than 160 million people
ravaged by poverty and deprivation, Abraham's work
seems lucrative. But Abraham and other women in this
business still have the authorities and people to contend
with.
One of the prostitutes who identified herself only as Janet,
spoke of how police arrest them indiscriminately, raiding
their brothel even when they are with their clients.
"Sometimes, after reluctantly paying for our services, they
arrest us and take us to the [police] station and ask us to
bail ourselves with the same amount they paid us, thereby
recovering their money," Janet said in pidgin English.
"Some of us sustain serious injuries when our customers
beat us up and there is no one to protect us," she added.
Other women raise even more serious complaints.
Outspoken and HIV-positive, 35-year-old Ayide, the only
name she gave in order to be quoted, attended one of the
rallies and said it is not only the police to blame.
"When we talk about police, we are pointing accusing
fingers at only one group. The fact is that all the uniformed
men, especially the mobile police [paramilitary arm of the
police], are oppressing us. They use their uniform to harass
us. They extort money from us, beat us and rape us," she
said.
Abraham corroborated the claims of Janet and Ayide,
saying that people who stigmatised them and the security
agents who harassed them were a serious problem.
"People call us names but the funny thing is that they
don't even know if their wives, sisters or daughters are one
of us," she said in-between laughter.
"If I don't tell you that I am a sex worker, you won't know
unless you see me here. Most of us are working as nurses
in big hospitals, some are bankers and even students, but
you won't know."
Raids on brothels
Philip Eze, the police officer in charge of Elere Police
Division, Lagos, explained that the police would not arrest
prostitutes were it not for the country's criminal code
outlawing prostitution.
"In the Nigerian criminal code, if somebody is soliciting for
men, it is against the law and vice versa. The law does not
cause confusions; we are the ones causing confusion in the
name of the law. I don't care if they have a world
association, it is illegal in Nigeria and their assembly is
illegal too," Eze said.
Responding to allegations of extortion, sexual harassment,
and rape by police, Eze said victims should report such
cases and the offenders would be prosecuted.
"Even though they are prostitutes, they have every right to
report rape and other human right abuses," he told Al
Jazeera.
Meanwhile, the fight between prostitutes and the
authorities continue.
Police occasionally raid brothels in Lagos and make
sweeping arrests in red light areas like Kofo Abayomi,
Victoria Island, Isaac John Street, and Allen Avenue.
Some of the lucky prostitutes end up in police cells where
they are interrogated and eventually released on bail.
Others end up serving jail terms of three to four months
without an option of paying a fine after being charged for
loitering, public indecency or disorderly conduct or
engaging in acts inimical to the public good.
To stage the protest to mark the International Sex Workers
Rights Day 2014 without a clash with the authorities, the
prostitutes outsmarted the police, obtaining a permit under
the auspices of WOPI.
They took their demands to the authorities at Shomolu
Local Government, Lagos, where they were advised that
legislators held the key to their demand.
Previous attempts by lawmakers to have prostitution
legalised were unsuccessful.
In 2011, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate
President of Nigeria, called for the complete legalisation of
prostitution, saying this would enable the government to
regulate the activities of prostitutes. The move sparked
widespread criticism across the country and Ekweremadu
later regretted his comment.
But Margaret Onah, the founder of Safe Haven
Development Initiative and WOPI, who has campaigned for
the rights of prostitutes, said she is still planning to take
protests to the national assembly, and push for legislation
that will decriminalise sex work and empower women.
"Nigerian law does not specifically say anything against
prostitution," Onah said.
"What it says is that if a girl is caught openly soliciting for
sex, and money is being exchanged, she should be
arrested. But we know that if a girl is staying in a brothel,
and is a sex worker, the brothel is more or less like her
home"
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