The Sombre Years

Advocate)

Pre-Nursery

Just the other day, I heard my mum talk about maturity and developing an independent mind, the kind of mind that is willing and able to synthesize solid issues. I had no idea of these high-sounding words and I never thought they will ever be relevant to my life. So, I simply screamed, like a spoilt child stuck in a keg of ice-cream, as a protest against her saying things I never understood.

As time went by, the discussion gathered momentum, progressing from the trivial to more serious matters of life. I was gradually building a bloc of interest in the whole talk and had to take off the cloak of apathy to enable me get to the core of the gist. My new attitude was that of a paradigm shift from what I later termed apathetic aversion.

During these conversations my mum had with me, one topic never ceased to be prominent-the need to preserve the integrity of the girl-child. To my young mind, that too, was big English, so I quietly crammed it.

One day, I heard mum talk tough like a man. I did not know that she was that educated. I cannot recall what led to the incident because she kept a lot of secrets from me. But I remember vividly that I heard her yell out, after listening to a programme on the television: "I get irritated listening to boring talks on economic empowerment and education, especially for the youths, when the said youths rot away in squalor and wallow in ignorance and every expression of deprivation that occasion gross social misdemeanor such as commercial sex work and armed robbery. The fables and sermons of a lot of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in this light are disgusting and as such call for serious probe. They seem to forget that every part of the world has a fair share of the menace of sex work. These ladies (sex workers) litter some secret places and like stars, they (sex workers) ‘shine’ only at night and fade as day light begins to dawn.

The approach to commercial sex work in Nigeria and in fact, the West African sub-region, replicates the styles of the trade in ancient times but with some advancement. The major differences are that those who are into sex work now were not the same people who were there in the past. Again, the amounts charged have skyrocketed significantly, especially influenced by the global economic downturn."

I listened to her open-mouthed. I could not comprehend a single of her high-sounding grammar. So, out of sheer curiosity, I asked her: mum, what are you talking about? She turned, took a deep gaze at me, simmering down, she drew me by the hands and replied: I am talking about the wickedness of economically depraved societies, and even the luxuriant ones, that fail to look back at what political/economic despoliations have done to human beings who have the same rights as those of the perpetrators/advocates of this bad condition.

I became confused all the more and decided to leave her alone. One thing however gave me another thought for food: My mum’s overwhelming presence all over me which did not give me a breeding space to ask her of my dad. What I however observed was that, she had too many male visitors. At some point, she will quietly hand me over to a neighbor and I was forced to stay with the neighbor for several hours before my mum came to pick me up. And that was certainly when her male visitor had left. I had no idea what business she was into. Nevertheless, I could not ask her. She however ensured that I got all my needs met, sometimes, even without my requesting.

Gradually, time flew into eons, and the little girl whose hands were held to help her cross the road, finally left the pre-nursery stage in school and headed off to the nursery. I knew that the higher the class, the more complex issues would become. So, I made up my mind early to face the odds of life.

Nursery One

The Story My Mum Told Me

I was busy watching my favourite cartoon network when she walked briskly into my room, like the old time British soldiers. I stared at her eyes steadily but could not find any cause for alarm. Suddenly, mum came and grasped my tender arms, drew me close to herself and told me to pay close attention to what she had to say. Ito, she began: around the world today, there is a human rights crisis of sexual abuse of millions of women, children, and thousands of men in prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation. There are regions of the world where prostitution has gone from being almost non-existent to a hundred million dollar moneymaking industry. I am going to talk about prostitution and sex trafficking.... I don’t believe you can talk about one without the other. They are inextricably linked. Those who favour legalized prostitution have led several years’ campaign to delink them–to convince us that trafficking has nothing to do with prostitution. That is false. As countries and activists who favour legalization have tried to separate prostitution and trafficking, most of the global attention has focused on trafficking.  We should be clear that we have to talk about both prostitution and trafficking together. Sex trafficking is the process that delivers victims into prostitution. It includes the recruitment, harboring, movement, and methods by which victims are compelled to stay in prostitution, whether by violence, coercion, threat, debt, or cultural manipulation. Prostitution and sex trafficking are based on a balance between the supply of available victims and the demand for victims to provide the sex acts. Victims are recruited from marginalized, poor, and vulnerable populations. These potential victims may be from the same city or country as the exploiters, or they may be trafficked from other countries or continents. They may be women and girls who are poor, uneducated, and naïve, and therefore easy to control, or they may be educated, middle-class girls who have been sexually abused until their bodily integrity and identities are destroyed and they no longer know how to resist abuse and exploitation. They may also be greed-infested girls/women who, driven by the insatiable quest for luxury, plunge into the trade. Even though, this sect accounts for less than 10% of the total number in sex trade. Another category is those unemployed graduates (and even some of the employed ones with menial earnings) who, unable to source for adequate sustenance, resort to the sex trade.

Hmm! I heaved. What a long discourse! But in all this, I still could not figure out what mum was aiming at teaching me. But the boredom that regained good control of me during her talk did not even bother her. What could be her motivation, I pondered. Mum however, took another straight gaze into eyes and said my daughter, listen, I have to bore you a little more just for your own good. I was not lucky to get these free tutorials you get now. If I did, perhaps, I would have been better off. I still could not understand the crux of the matter.

This time, she took me into her bedroom for the first time in a long time and continued: according to The Women Trafficking and Child Labour Foundation in Nigeria, WOTCLEF, human trafficking happens in nearly every corner of the world. Trafficking in persons is modern-day slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. Annually, approximately 800,000 people - mostly women and children - are trafficked across national borders. This does not count the millions trafficked within their own countries. People are trapped into trafficking by many means. In some cases, physical force is used. In other cases, false promises are made regarding job opportunities or marriages in foreign countries to entrap victims. Human trafficking is a clandestine operation, and its victims are hidden and afraid to come forward. Each year it is estimated that nearly one million people - mostly women and children - are trafficked around the world. Approximately 14,500 - 17,500 people are trafficked to the United States each year, and forced to live in slave-like conditions.

At this juncture, I was unable to hide my disgust with the long talks I could not understand. Mum! I managed to scream, what are you saying? She paused, took a deeper breath and drew closer to me on the couch and whispered into my ears: my daughter, you have not heard anything yet! Listen: according to the The Executive Secretary of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related Matters, NAPTIP, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba, 60% of prostitutes in Belgian towns and Italy are Nigerians. Trafficking of under-aged girls from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia is now in the rise. Available statistics indicate that 60% of the prostitutes in Turin, Italy, Greece and Antwerp in Belgium are Nigerian girls. It appears from the report of our staff who have participated in Hajj operations that there is an increased trafficking activity under the cover of the annual pilgrimage. Traffickers have devised an insidious plan to desecrate the Holy Land of Mecca with trafficked victims. There was an increase in internal trafficking at the border towns of Calabar, Port Harcourt, Uyo, Badagry, Benin, Kebbi, Sokoto and Maiduguri, with about 8 million children at the risk of being trafficked. Reports equally showed that there are large numbers of Nigerian women regularly taken to other West and Central African countries of Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina-Faso and the Gambia for sexual exploitation under the guise of taking them abroad for employment opportunities. A recent fact finding mission...confirmed the existence of many brothels in Bamako, Mopti, Kayes, Skies, Gao, all in Mali populated by young Nigerians women and girls between the ages of 14 and 17 years being used as sex slaves. The agency has identified two major trafficking routes –the Lagos-Cotonuo-Moussa-Ouagadougou-Mali route accounts for about 75% of trafficked victims to Europe and the Sokoto-Bori Koni in Niger Republic and Katsina Maradi-Niamey-Agadez-Libya."

I pondered on my mum’s scary narrative for several days, not knowing exactly what to think. However, I did ask her about how the odd trade she described starts. She simply told me that the answer to my question was a discussion for another day.

I did not have the patience to wait for whenever my mum would possibly be ready to tell me how the bad business starts, so I kept asking whoever I thought could have the answers to satiate my curiosity. So, one fateful day, I asked one of the lady teachers in school if she had ever heard about prostitution. The teacher was taken aback and she almost gave me a knock on the head which she later converted to a slap on my back.

That was not the kind of response I had expected. Could it be that mum was telling me the wrong thing? I wondered in my tender heart. The hot slap I got because I asked my teacher about prostitution got me inhibited and so I could not ask another teacher.

A golden opportunity came when a guest visited our school from a group that was introduced to us as Society Against Prostitution and Child Labour in Nigeria, SAPCLN. The tall, robust and beautiful woman walked into each of the classrooms and I saw a lot of kindness in her eyes. We had to end our classes early to enable the woman talk to us.

The moment she started her speech, so many things came to my mind: should I ask her the question that made my lady teacher slap me or should I simply keep quiet and listen? I asked myself rhetorically.  I listened attentively to the woman’s speech, though I understood only little. Perhaps the older students understood everything. My mind was doubly fixed on asking her my question.

At the end of her presentation, she asked if anyone had any question at all. The answer she got was sullen silence. But I kept looking at her in the eyes. My little girl, she said to me, you look curious and worried, do you have any question for me? she finally asked me. I had to look at the lady teacher who gave me a slap the other day to get approval but the woman from SAPCLN kept persuading me to feel free to ask the question. Auntie, how does prostitution start and are good girls sometimes the victims? I finally let out the question. To my greatest surprise, the question that fetched me a slap from my school teacher earned me applause from the SAPCLN woman: very good question, she replied. But I could hear a tumultuous murmur from my teachers, especially the one who gave me a slap the other day when I asked her the same question.

I still remember vividly that her answer to my question generated a fresh presentation that lasted several hours. Her presentation, though long but meaningful, is recalled