So while scouring the internet for more information regarding the African prostitutes of Europe I learned that some of the Ghanaian prostitutes are not actually Ghanaian but Nigerian women who have secured Ghanaian passports and that a lot of the Nigerian women involved in this trade in general come from Benin City, Edo State.
Now back to the point of this post. I was quite surprised to hear that Benin people have no concept of prostitution. Thus, I happened upon this scholarly work that I will now share with you. He points out that there is a relative absence of male pimps in this trade. These prostitutes were autonomous women who controlled their own sexuality and their earnings and often formed support groups for each other.
With colonialism and the proliferation of towns as economic centers, prostitution became one of several options for migrant women.
These towns blended people from different ethnic groups and provided anonymity. He quotes early Ghanaian scholars such as Ione Acquah and K. A Busia who blame colonialism for the proliferation of prostitution. Yes, another one of those European imports. Even news reports of armed robbery or drug smuggling in Ghana today will tell you that the perpetrator was Nigerian or a Ghanaian who used to live in Nigeria or elsewhere abroad.
Left to our own we are saints! Luckily or should that be unfortunately? They were a pre-colonial phenomenon of women, often slaves, acquired by the chiefs and elders for the sole purpose of providing sexual services for the local bachelors. I think one could make an argument that it is. Just wondering. Mind you dude never left the Netherlands! Just saying. Dapper wrote that every village maintained about 2 or 3 Abrakrees. Once the ceremony was over, she would be examined privately to make sure she was indeed a woman and then would be paraded throughout the village.
