At a point, the FCT authority became uncomfortable with the situation and so rolled out some directives to put an end to prostitution in the city. The authority, through its Secretary for Social Development, Mrs. Blessing Onuh, in fact, banned the “business” in the city..
Apart from creating a special taskforce with the responsibility of arresting recalcitrant “runs girls”, the FCTA, in its 2013 budget, earmarked N150m for their evacuation and rehabilitation. Other vulnerable persons such as the destitute were also considered in the budget.
As of today, it may be difficult to see these commercial sex workers loitering around public places, but that does not mean that they have left the city to sell their “ware” elsewhere . Indeed, with the arrest of many of them by the special taskforce for loitering, they simply went back to the drawing board, devising new methods to up their game.
One of such methods, findings reveal is “online prostitution.” This involves employing strategies, such as using social networking service. In fact, one unique approach is the use of Badoo, a dating-focused social networking service, which operates in 180 countries. Report has it as the 136th most popular website in the world.
According to a civil servant who recently transferred to Abuja from Ondo State, Badoo is handy for him when he needs female companions. He adds, “What I normally do is to launch my Badoo wherever I am. Whether I am drinking in a garden or visiting friends, once I launch it, my handset will show me ladies who are on Badoo within that vicinity. It will bring out their pictures and we will begin chatting. Anyone I decide to invite will be with me within 10 minutes because of her proximity.”
He notes that while some of the “online prostitutes” will prefer to negotiate their price via online, others prefer the face-to-face negotiation, perhaps with some bottles of drinks to spice up the moment.
The use of smart phones is another veritable platform. Here, their agents with such i-phones display pictures (nude and semi-nude) of their friends and business partners, as it were, who are up for grabs. Once they gain the potential men’s attention, they show them the pictures from which they make their choices.
An undercover investigator ran into one of such agents at a popular garden in the Central Area of Abuja and offered her a drink. To reciprocate the gesture, the lady, who claimed to be Benita, offered to provide her friend(s). “What are your specs (specifications)? You like them chubby or thin. What size of boobs and buttocks do you prefer?” These and many more questions came from Benita.
Without waiting for answers, she opened her Nokia Lumina phone and next was a series of beautiful pictures of young ladies in their early and mid 20’s.
“You will like this one, she is gentle. You will enjoy this one, she is jovial,” she said and continued using different words to advertise the special attributes of each of the ladies on her phone gallery.
On whether the ladies are her friends, she said, “I knew them when I was doing girls’ business.” When pressed further to explain what the business was, Benita recoiled into her shell out of suspicion.
In order not to give himself away, the investigator asked her to call any of the girls who she could vouch for. Tingling with excitement, she immediately promised to invite three of such women to avoid any disappointment. But if you think that service would be done without a price, you are dead wrong. In fact, she was mobilised to carry out the task with a recharge card and in less than 20 minutes, two of the ladies were already close to the garden, desperately seeking information on the phone on how to reach us.
But before they finally joined arrived, she boasted, “Two of them are already close by. I do not want to turn anyone of them back. You can pick your choice from the two. In case you want to go with the two, you are free to do so. In this Abuja, I can “control” 10 girls for you immediately without standing up from here.”
As soon as Sandra and Love (not real names) joined them, they ordered drinks while the investigator kept taking notes of the sequence on his i-pad. Benita kept interrupting him, accusing him of not concentrating on his guests. She whispered to him, demanding to know which one of them he preferred or whether he would go with the two. When he asked what it would cost him to take them; away, she replied, “I have worked on them so you do not need to negotiate with them. Just take them away and when they are leaving tomorrow morning, give them whatever you can afford.”
At that point, he told her that he had an evening meeting to cover and he promised to join them later. To erase any doubt, he left enough money to cater for their drinks while the contact person assured of keeping them company until he returned.
Again, instead of loitering around, Abuja commercial sex workers now sit inside drinking joints or hotel bars, occasionally engaging in one social debate or another. Indeed, since they dress well, it will be difficult to take them for whores.
On Sunday evening,the investigator, accompanied by a colleague, drove to a popular hotel located in Area 3, Garki, which is notorious for the huge presence of these damsels. Interestingly, these women of easy virtue were not on the street leading to the hotel as was in the past. They have also adopted a fresh strategy.
As they entered the hotel’s drinking garden, there were no fewer than seven men with small kiosks inside the garden. Apart from chewing gum and perhaps recharge cards, the other most prominent items on display at the kiosks were all manner of cartons of condoms.
The investigator bought a recharge card from one of them in order to gain his confidence and talk to him. The trick worked. When the investigator demanded to know whether “babes” no longer come to the hotel, he smiled and pointed to a corner where there was a live band. He told the investigator in not-too-perfect English that he had passed many of them unknowingly.
As they made their way towards the live band, ladies who were already seated, pretending to be patrons who came to drink, started making some unusual gestures towards them. Pronto, they found out that the ladies were CSWs who, for fear of arrest, no longer stand on the roadside.
A banker, Emmanuel, told a story of how commercial sex workers contribute money to rent houses in the city centre with about five or more of them sharing a single room. He recalled how one of his friends who went in search of one of the ladies in Area 8 ended up sleeping with not only the lady but also with one of her room mates.
Although efforts to get the reaction of the FCTA to the new trend did not yield any result, a source said that it would be difficult to tackle.
Olalekan Adetayo
They have to find ways to survive.
ReplyDeleteThe profession keeps evolving according to societal pressures.
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