Introduction
Prostitution in Africa has often been framed through moral discourse, public health anxieties, and fear of social disorder. In Eastern Nigeria, especially in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War, such moralistic notions obscure the economic conditions that shaped women’s participation in the sex industry. This article argues that sex work in early postcolonial Eastern Nigeria functioned as a form of women’s labor, shaped by postwar economic disruption, gendered economy, and intensified urban migration.
Scholars have increasingly challenged the moralistic framing of prostitution, situating sex work within urbanization, labor migration, and masculinized political economy. Janet Bujra (Reference Bujra1975) argues that although economic hardship forced many women into sex work, they transformed it into a lucrative business and, through their wealth accumulation, became social actors. Luise White (Reference White1990) discards moralism and positions sex work as wage labor, in which colonial Kenyan women acquired income. Similarly, Emmanuel Akyeampong (Reference Akyeampong1997) argues that in the Gold Coast (Ghana), sex work represented women’s assertion of their autonomy as they moved away from their communities to accumulate wealth. In Nigeria, Saheed Aderinto (Reference Aderinto2014, Reference Aderinto and Jacob2016) argues that women’s engagement in prostitution was a means to earn economic mobility in the absence of formal employment, increasing their migration within and outside Nigeria. One group of women prominent in sex work in Lagos and the Gold Coast was Eastern Nigerian women, particularly from the Cross River basin and Owerri Province. Benedict Naanen (Reference Naanen1991) partly links the preponderance of women from the Cross River Basin in the sex industry to their landlessness in their rural communities. Naanen reconstructs the motives for women’s migration outside their provinces to urban areas not as victimhood but as autonomy performed by actors who navigated limited economic opportunities under colonialism.
Building on this scholarship, this article intervenes by centering Eastern Nigeria as a distinct postcolonial circumstance shaped by war and uneven development. It argues that while coercive prostitution and trafficking intensified in the 1970s, many women voluntarily entered sex work as a means of survival (Akor Reference Akor2011; Achebe Reference Achebe2004). By reconceptualizing prostitution as labor, this article draws on archival sources and interviews with retired sex workers, centering women’s voices while situating their experiences within the broader political economy of Eastern Nigeria. To protect the privacy of participants, all retired and current sex workers mentioned in this article are referred to by pseudonyms. Due to the lack of reliable gender-disaggregated poverty data for Eastern Nigeria between 1960 and 1980, the analysis relies primarily on qualitative evidence to illustrate women’s economic constraints. The geographic scope of this study encompasses women from the former Eastern region prior to the 1967 state division, which created Cross River and Rivers as separate regions.
Background of sex work in Eastern Nigeria
Precolonial sexual relations in Eastern Nigeria were regulated by local moral economies rather than strict conjugal norms. Archival evidence suggests that across several groups in Eastern Provinces, sexual relations outside marriage were not uniformly stigmatized.Footnote 1 However, these practices were reinterpreted under colonial rule through missionary and administrative interventions on female sexuality in alignment with Victorian morality (Walkowitz Reference Walkowitz1980, vii). Thus, colonial officials and missionaries frequently portrayed African sexual practices as the root of social problems (Ekpootu Reference Ekpootu2013). In promoting sex exclusively within marriage, colonial authorities and missionaries redefined a wide range of existing nonconjugal sexual relations as prostitution. In collaboration with indigenous chiefs, the colonial state imposed a new moral order that policed female sexuality, reframing respectable womanhood in Victorian terms of chastity and marital sexual relations (Ekpootu Reference Ekpootu2013; Reference Ekpootu, García, van Voss and van Nederveen Meerkerk2017).
To understand how Easterners viewed prostitution in the colonial period, it is worth considering the local terminology for the trade and the women engaged in it. By the late colonial period, Eastern Nigerian sex workers were commonly known as Akunakuna, a term derived from a village group in Obubra Division in Cross River, where many local and transborder Eastern Nigerian sex workers originated (Naanen Reference Naanen1991). This prevalence reflected structural conditions, including the limited land and scarce resources that pushed women to leave their villages and engage in sex work.Footnote 2 Local terminology further highlighted encoded morality in some Eastern Nigerian communities during the colonial period. In Afikpo, sex work was known as Ukpara (frog), a term suggesting that sex workers were imagined as “jumping” from one man to another, like frogs. Such expressions placed sex workers outside normative sexual relations.
While prostitution is often defined as the exchange of sex for economic gain, scholarship on colonial Africa situates it as a socioeconomic phenomenon shaped by urbanization, labor migration, and gendered exclusion from wage employment (Bujra Reference Bujra1975; White Reference White1990; Akyeampong Reference Akyeampong1997). In Eastern Nigeria, the origin of sex work cannot be traced due to limited precolonial evidence. However, entrepreneurial sex became institutionalized through colonial capitalism, which concentrated wage labor in urban centers, ports, mines, and barracks. Scholars such as Mfon Ekpootu and Saheed Aderinto argue that sex work thrived in cities where colonial ventures generated male wage and purchasing power. At the same time, women’s exclusion from formal employment continued to push them into informal economic sectors, including prostitution.
The economic displacement of Eastern Nigerian women in the postcolonial period was rooted in colonial legacies of gender exclusion in formal employment and Western education. Despite these structural barriers, Eastern Nigerian women continued to play a vital role in the economy through agriculture, trading, and crafts. They supplied labor to plantations introduced by the regional government under initiatives such as the Oil Palm Rehabilitation Scheme (OPRS). Eastern Nigerian women played crucial roles during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967 to 1970, particularly through the high-risk cross-border trading that involved women going beyond the territory of secessionist Biafra into federal Nigeria to buy food to sell and to feed their families (Iwuagwu Reference Iwuagwu2012; Korieh Reference Korieh2010; Aall Reference Aall1970). Despite these contributions, the postcolonial regional government reproduced many of the colonial patterns of gendered marginalization. Eastern Nigerian women were excluded from commercial agricultural programs, faced price controls that limited their trade profits, and had fewer employment opportunities. For instance, initiatives such as the 1976 “Operation Feed the Nation” imposed strict price control measures that disproportionately affected women traders.Footnote 3 The price control decree empowered the Price Control Board to impose penalties—including forfeiture of the commodity, monetary fines, and imprisonment—on anyone who sold a commodity at a price above the fixed price. Even under early postcolonial agricultural policies, women were treated as subsistence farmers while the target for modern agricultural programs was men. Meanwhile, urbanization driven by the 1970s oil boom accelerated rural-urban migration. Cities like Aba, Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Lagos became magnets for rural migrants seeking jobs, yet job opportunities were few, particularly for women. In urban areas, women were often excluded from formal employment because it was assumed that men were the primary breadwinners. These policies were also intended to discourage female urban migration, in part to limit prostitution.Footnote 4
The inability of rural women to find urban jobs pushed them into the informal economy, including sex work as a survival strategy. Nigerian cities provided sex workers with the anonymity to ply their trade because of the large population in urban centers, which made people less identifiable and increased the freedom to indulge in the sex industry (Aderinto Reference Aderinto and Jacob2016; Ekpootu Reference Ekpootu2013). Indeed, while postcolonial Nigerian cities were male-dominated, women were important for their sexual and domestic labor (White Reference White1990). Women’s agency was evident in their determination to escape economic hardship and to manage their own businesses, free from the control of male pimps. Eastern Nigerian sex workers, during this time, migrated to various destinations within Nigeria and abroad. Unlike during the colonial period, when Eastern Nigerian sex workers primarily migrated to Fernando Po (now part of Equatorial Guinea) and the Gold Coast (now Ghana), the postcolonial period saw an expansion of destinations to include European countries (Onyemelukwe Reference Joe Okezie1974).
Prostitution in postindependence Eastern Nigeria, 1960–66
Although urbanization in Eastern Nigeria accelerated during the Second World War (1939–45), the period from 1960 saw an explosion in urban populations alongside significant infrastructure expansion. People moved from rural communities, where agriculture had previously employed them, to large cities with few or no job opportunities, leading to social volatility as competition for limited jobs intensified. With the division of the region into states in 1967, the Eastern states of Cross River and Rivers State were excised from Eastern Nigeria. In other words, Calabar and Port Harcourt ceased to be regarded as Eastern Nigerian cities from this time, yet they remained tied to the region. From 1967, major Eastern Nigerian cities included only Aba, Onitsha, and Enugu. After colonial rule, Eastern Nigerian cities such as Onitsha expanded due to their well-developed road networks, which were instrumental in transforming them into commercial hubs that accommodated a range of businesses and industries. For Aba, urbanization extended beyond the municipal areas developed and occupied by Europeans—such as Milverton, Clifford, and Park Road—where colonial infrastructure had previously been centered. In Enugu, although coal mining declined in the 1950s, the city continued to attract people for economic opportunities. During the decade from 1953 to 1963, Enugu’s population increased from 62,764 to 138,874 (Eze Reference Eze2021; Obi-Ani and Isiani Reference Obi-Ani and Isiani2020). This rapid urbanization was considered a national problem, as many Nigerians believed it caused social upheaval, rising unemployment, housing shortages, and increased crime rates.Footnote 5
During this period, prostitution continued to generate arguments, mainly related to the Christian notion of respectability and the premise of sex work being a vector for the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. As a region predominantly inhabited by Christians, sex hawkers were seen as defiling their bodies. With the ambiguous legal status of sex work in postcolonial Nigeria, the industry grew and more brothels were established in Eastern Nigerian cities. According to Aderinto, in postindependence Nigeria, the government’s stance on prostitution changed from prohibition to tolerance, reversing the colonial parameters (Aderinto Reference Aderinto2014). Sex work became normalized because it was viewed as an economic opportunity for women, and sex workers engaged in it as a means of survival.Footnote 6
Due to the uneven development of rural areas in Eastern Nigeria—particularly in terms of social amenities and employment—the region continued to experience significant rural-to-urban migration (Naanen Reference Naanen1991). For instance, in postcolonial Onitsha, factors such as floods, declining agricultural production, population growth, and hunger drove people from rural areas to urban centers in search of alternative economic activities. In some cases, people also moved from smaller towns to bigger cities to earn higher wages (Nwosu and Igben Reference Nwosu and Igben1986). Thus, many Eastern Nigerians moved to cities such as Enugu, Onitsha, Aba, Warri, Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Lagos to seek white-collar jobs or employment in other sectors. These labor migration patterns continued to reflect the trends established during the colonial period. Postcolonial Lagos and Port Harcourt remained the primary port cities, while Enugu continued to function as a mining center.
In the 1960s, Eastern Nigerian cities continued to grow, making them points of attraction for women migrating for prostitution. Onitsha, for instance, had developed into a significant commercial center. The commercialization of Onitsha drew people from various parts of Eastern Nigeria, other regions of Nigeria, and even other parts of West Africa to reside and conduct business. In addition, Aba emerged as another important Eastern Nigerian city, experiencing rapid growth and attracting substantial migration. Surrounded by the wealthy coastal cities of Port Harcourt, Oron, Calabar, and Eket, and with the advent of oil production around the time of independence, Aba was also located near the main access points to oil-rich areas such as Cross River and Rivers states (Izugbara Reference Izugbara2007). Increasing urbanization and commercialization in the Eastern Nigerian region created a bigger market for prostitution. The size of urban centers also influenced the choice of destinations for sex workers. As such, some women from Umuahia and other smaller towns migrated to nearby Port Harcourt and Aba because they regarded the two places as big cities where they sought opportunities in the sex industry.
Beyond local destinations, Eastern Nigerian sex workers migrated to other African countries for prostitution. According to the United Nations International Migration Trends, the transborder migration pattern of women from 1960 to 1980 saw about half of all international migrants being female (United Nations 2005). Nkparom Ejituwu (Reference Ejituwu, Asiwaju, Barkindo and Mabale1995) notes that at the time of Nigeria’s independence, the country’s economic depression continued to drive Nigerian labor migration to Equatorial Guinea, where wages earned could transform a laborer’s status from near poverty to that of a prosperous farmer upon his return. Similarly, Eastern Nigerians continued to migrate to cocoa-producing areas of Ghana, such as the Volta, Ashanti, Brong, and Western regions, where plantation jobs attracted many migrant workers. During the colonial period, Eastern Nigerian women typically migrated to destinations where they had established familial connections. This pattern continued in the postcolonial period, with Eastern Nigerians and sex workers relying on kinship networks for information and support in migrating to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana (Arthur Reference Arthur1991).
In postcolonial Eastern Nigeria, there were two main types of prostitution practiced by Eastern Nigerian women, namely, brothel-based and streetwalking. The brothel form of sex work developed mainly during the colonial period and continued into the postcolonial era. In the 1960s, brothel-based prostitution was the primary type of sex work in Eastern Nigeria, while some streetwalkers also operated. In some rural or semi-urban areas, such as Ikot Ekpene, street prostitution did not emerge until the 1970s and 1980s. In the Ibibio language, brothels were called Eko Apara, meaning “the interior place for prostitutes,” while in Igbo, they were known as ulo ndi akwuna , translating to “the house of prostitutes.” Brothels were also commonly referred to as “hotels.” Many brothels initially operated as beer parlors where men gathered to eat and drink. However, with the prevalence of prostitution, owners of these establishments recognized the lucrativeness of managing brothels and renovated their property to include rooms for sex workers. Although a few brothels were owned by women, men predominantly owned brothels in Eastern Nigeria because it was considered a lucrative business and in which they had the financial capacity to engage. Brothels provided the first shelter for some sex workers who relocated from other areas as they struggled to find accommodation quickly.Footnote 7
In brothels, male clients received sexual services in the sex workers’ rooms. Retired sex workers who were interviewed expressed a preference for brothel-based prostitution because it was considered safer and ensured a steady stream of regular clients. Clients would visit the brothels without requiring much solicitation from the women. Moreover, sex workers in brothels were less concerned about police raids as they often paid “police settlement money” to avoid harassment.Footnote 8 A fundamental rule in these establishments was maintaining order in the environment, including avoiding physical confrontations and dressing modestly outside the brothel to prevent attracting attention from law enforcement. Adherence to this rule was crucial in avoiding police raids.Footnote 9 Furthermore, brothels operated under strict regulations, such as the requirement for prompt rent payments by sex workers. Since sex workers exercised a degree of autonomy over their work, they could leave a brothel at any time. While the managers of these brothels were called “oga” or “madam,” it did not imply that they controlled how the sex workers conducted their business. Instead, the women were considered tenants on the property. As with every tenant, the managers’ most important concern was maintaining the rules, including the payment of rent.Footnote 10 This arrangement reinforced a degree of autonomy for sex workers.
Some of the popular brothels in Eastern Nigeria date back to the 1960s. In Ikom, early hotels established in the 1960s were Hotel de Paragon, Madam Agi Hotel, and Four Corner. In Aba, the Commonwealth Hotel, located along Hospital Road, was established around 1962. The location of brothels or houses significantly determined rental costs. Some sex workers preferred renting private houses to living in brothels, as private accommodations were less regulated and were considered more respectable. In Onitsha, for instance, sex workers often rented houses and, in some cases, shared rooms, demarcating the space with curtains to reduce costs. Similarly, in rural communities like Afikpo, women rented houses where they lived and conducted business. Rent prices varied widely based on location and period. For instance, in the 1960s, rent in Warri was approximately 10 shillings per month.Footnote 11 Some sex workers in Warri during this period shared rooms and split the 10-shilling rent.
Prostitution in Eastern Nigeria during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–70
The Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) was a significant period in the history of prostitution in Eastern Nigeria. This period witnessed the worsening of the unemployment problem from the 1960s and women’s influx into prostitution accelerated.Footnote 12 Unlike in the colonial period—when a few women had access to elementary education—some postcolonial sex workers had attained secondary education, which could have qualified them for other job opportunities. However, many remained unemployed due to the war and turned to sex work. The Nigerian Civil War, which began due to the Eastern region’s attempt to secede from Nigeria, sparked a humanitarian crisis (Omaka Reference Omaka2016). In 1966, the indiscriminate killings of Eastern Nigerians in Northern Nigeria, Lagos, and some parts of Western Nigeria intensified tensions and contributed to the outbreak of the conflict (Siollun Reference Siollun2009). Because of this carnage, hundreds of thousands of Eastern Nigerians residing in other parts of Nigeria fled back to the Eastern region. The return of Eastern Nigerians to their home region and the outbreak of war in “Biafra” on July 6, 1967, exacerbated the food crisis, as the federal blockade prevented agricultural activities. The Civil War drastically restructured household economies, forcing women to become the breadwinners in the absence of men who were dead, incapacitated, or had joined the army.
Sex work in Eastern Nigeria became an economic opportunity for some women—either as a part-time or full-time activity—and was shaped by the intersecting effects of wartime militarization, economic marginalization, and displacement. The nexus between political upheavals and sex work establishes that conflicts are a persistent push factor for migration and prostitution primarily because wars increase the demand for sex due to the presence of male soldiers (White Reference White1990). Also, in mass conflicts like the Nigerian Civil War, there were waves of civilian migration to escape violence, and as such, people abandoned their regular means of livelihood. In such instances, women—having no other means of survival for themselves and their families—sold sexual services (Röger Reference Röger2021; MacArthur-Seal Reference MacArthur-Seal2024). Therefore, sex represented a survival strategy that some Eastern Nigerian women used to navigate the war, while some other women engaged in cross-border trading (Achebe Reference Achebe2010). Eastern Nigerian women were targets of sexual violence by federal Nigerian soldiers. However, to avoid starvation, some of them engaged in consensual sexual relations with Nigerian soldiers—illustrating agency rather than victimhood.Footnote 13 According to Enajite Ojaruega (Reference Ojaruega2022), female agency during the Civil War was evident in Eastern Nigerian women’s physical and mental preparedness to use all available resources, including their bodies, to survive the war.
With the heavy presence of federal soldiers in Eastern Nigeria during and immediately after the Civil War, prostitution increased. This was connected to the Nigerian soldiers being salaried and needing the sexual and domestic services of women since they were either deployed without their spouses or were unmarried. Thus, they sought Eastern Nigerian women for companionship, to wash their clothes, and to provide other services. In addition, since the soldiers had sufficient food and were in a region ravaged by starvation, women had intimate relationships with soldiers to get food such as garri, fish, powdered milk, and meat. A Nigerian soldier deployed from Zaria to Onitsha, who was eighteen years old at the beginning of the war, narrated thus:
Some of the women, even married women, befriended us, had sexual relations with us, and cleaned and washed our clothes to have food. We knew they did it for food because we had more than enough to eat. Sometimes, we disposed of food that we did not want. On a few occasions, some women would carry their young children in baskets to the soldiers’ residences. We used to camp in schools, not in session, because of the war. When they brought those children, they were given food and something to take home. That was how some Biafran women got food for themselves and their families.Footnote 14
Furthermore, some women used sex as an essential tool to navigate their wartime occupations, such as cross-border trade, in order to accumulate capital for their businesses (Bello Reference Bello2022). Engaging in cross-border trade and acquiring food, salt, cigarettes, and other commodities from adjacent federal areas, such as Benue, required the use of federal currency. To obtain Nigerian pounds—the Nigerian government-recognized currency—some Eastern Nigerian women sold their jewelry, clothes, and other valuables. In some other instances, women entered into sexual relationships with soldiers in exchange for Nigerian currency, which helped them engage in trade and buy food like garri, fish, salt, and stockfish in areas where the Nigerian currency was accepted. With the withdrawal of soldiers at the end of the war, women who had relied on the soldiers’ patronage lost their primary means of economic survival.Footnote 15
In Eastern Nigeria, population growth from wartime migration drove urban expansion. Following the end of the war, commerce in Eastern Nigerian cities such as Aba and Onitsha slowly began to revive. Some Eastern Nigerians who had fled from other parts of Nigeria to the Eastern region in 1966 did not return to Northern and Western Nigeria after the war. Instead, due to fear and distrust caused by the war, they settled in Eastern Nigerian cities and established businesses. Among them were skilled returnees, including mechanics, welders, and traders, who started businesses and trained boys in these jobs. This is known as the Igbo apprenticeship system. The apprenticeship model, also known as “ igba boi ,” is an entrepreneurship approach based on mentoring where young boys moved to live with successful businessmen who taught them basic entrepreneurial skills for four to five years (Netshandama, Iwara, and Amaechi Reference Netshandama, Iwara and Amaechi2019; Achama et al. Reference Achama, Chinweoke M., John Esonwunne and Chinasa2021). In return for the trainees’ labor during this period, the mentor provided them with capital, rented a shop, and offered them marketing connections contingent upon the apprentice’s satisfactory service to the mentor’s business during their training. While the apprenticeship system was crucial in helping Eastern Nigerians emerge from poverty after the war, women did not benefit from this male-focused business model, leaving them in poverty. It is also true that women were ignored in the Eastern Central state government’s post-Civil War plan to grant agricultural and industrial loans to small businesses. While some women began petty trading in garri, second-hand clothes, and vegetables, a lack of capital posed a challenge to women starting businesses. As such, some women joined prostitution to acquire money to set up a business.Footnote 16
The Nigerian Civil War played an essential role in the increase of sex work in the region (Daly Reference Daly2020). From the war’s end in 1970, women migrating from rural areas to earn money through sex became a feature in Eastern Nigerian cities since they struggled to obtain formal employment. This period witnessed a surge in the migration of Eastern Nigerian women. With postwar reconstruction projects in Eastern Nigerian cities and Port Harcourt, there was a pull of women from rural areas to sell food and sexual services to male laborers.Footnote 17 Some moved to Aba, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Enugu. This period also saw the growth of the streetwalking type of prostitution, where sex workers solicited clients on the streets in the region. Furthermore, the war prompted the transfer of government resources from Eastern Nigeria to other regions, spurring Igbo men and women to migrate to areas with higher concentrations of wealth (Nwosu et al. Reference Nwosu, Eteng, Ekpechu, Nnam, Ukah, Eyisi and Orakwe2022). In the aftermath of the war, Aba experienced significant growth and many Eastern Nigerians relocated there to start businesses. This influx created a market for prostitution, leading women from Calabar, Owerri, and Abakaliki to move to Aba for that purpose. In addition, the Nigerian Civil War further influenced patterns of transborder migration, as many Eastern Nigerian women, including those from Cross River and Rivers, fled to neighboring countries such as Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea to seek safety (Orji and Samuel Reference Orji and Samuel2013). Women from Obubra, for instance, migrated to Ghana and Cameroon. In Umuahia, the end of the war spurred the migration of Eastern Nigerian women to Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, where these women had already established networks within their communities.
The amplification of sex work in Eastern Nigeria, 1971–80
Besides war, the oil boom exacerbated the movement of women into prostitution. Oil was first discovered commercially in 1956 at Oloibiri, in present-day Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region, near Eastern Nigeria, and oil exports began in 1958. Exploration opened the region to foreign oil firms such as Chevron. From the 1960s to the 1970s, multinational oil companies became active in the region, including Shell Energy, Nigerian Agip Oil, and ExxonMobil. Although the oil boom in the late 1970s brought revenues to the Nigerian government, it led to poverty among the local population due to the unequal distribution of natural resources among different regional forces. Indeed, during the boom, the agricultural sector, which had been the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, was neglected, leading to its decline. Due to the decline in agriculture, rural people were adversely affected. In addition, oil industry cities and towns, such as Bonny and Eleme, suffered environmental degradation from oil spills, which affected agricultural production and fishing. Women lost access to land, their primary source of livelihood, due to oil exploration and associated environmental destruction (Pérouse de Montclos Reference Pérouse de Montclos2024; Enwa and Achoja Reference Enwa and Achoja2016; Akakuru et al. Reference Akakuru, Egbeiyi, Onyema and Akakuru2022).
Despite destroying women’s sources of livelihood, the government and oil firms failed to incorporate women into the oil industry, deepening their marginalization. Regarding discrimination against women in industry, Hester Eisenstein (Reference Eisenstein2017) argues that incorporating women into business operations is a remedy for the ills of the capitalist world economy. On the other hand, Brett Byatt (Reference Byatt2018) posits that corporatization does not liberate women from oppression but instead reinforces the patriarchal hierarchy and gender roles found in capitalism. He argues that the position that women should be incorporated into the global economy denies that capitalism does not value women’s work as much as men’s. However, women who do not engage in the world economy because they lack education, access to capital, and training live in constant poverty, forcing many into informal opportunities—such as prostitution—as a means of survival. Since the 1970s, the destruction of crops and the health hazards of consuming contaminated food have prompted rural people in South-South Nigeria, including women, to migrate to urban areas within the region and to the neighboring Eastern Nigerian cities of Aba, Onitsha, and Owerri in search of alternative means of survival (Chinedu and Chukwuemeka Reference Chinedu and Chukwuemeka2018). In other words, the oil business and its impact in South-South Nigeria spilt over to Eastern Nigeria. Poor women and girls are the most severely affected by environmental degradation, particularly in Nigeria’s oil-producing areas (Omorodion Reference Omorodion2004; Byatt Reference Byatt2018; Helbert and O’Brien Reference Helbert and O’Brien2020).
Women migrating to oil-producing cities, such as Port Harcourt, were often excluded from formal employment opportunities. This reflects continuity with the colonial-era economic structure, which concentrated access to wage labor in men’s hands while relegating women to the informal economy. Women faced impoverishment because oil companies typically hired few local people. Worse, the sector remained discriminatory to women, even in positions that required minimal educational requirements. Only men were employed in fieldwork activities, such as pipe laying and lower-level service jobs, as well as in security and other daily-paid labor. In many cases, these oil industry jobs paid more than those in the civil service and other sectors and recruiting only men placed them in more economically advantageous positions than women. According to environmental scholar Maryse Helbert and design historian Sorcha O’Brien, women have unequal employment opportunities in the oil industry because it was believed that these jobs required toughness, competitiveness, self-interest, aggression, and self-reliance, which were traditionally considered masculine traits (Helbert and O’Brien Reference Helbert and O’Brien2020). In other words, the supposed gentleness and nonaggressiveness of most women compared to men are considered undesirable by corporations. Without any income generation, many women in these oil-producing areas and nearby Eastern cities sold sexual services to foreign and local male oil workers to survive and provide for their families, creating a sex market (Poroma, David, and Jackson et al. Reference Poroma, David and Jackson2014).
The oil boom increased the migration of Eastern Nigerian women, especially to Rivers State where many African and foreign men worked in the oil industry. Furthermore, Lagos was still considered a place of opportunity during this period, prompting women to migrate there for various prospects including sex work. Notably, in Eastern Nigeria, the sex worker population was diverse, hailing not only from the region but also from Yoruba communities in Western Nigeria, as well as Cameroonians and Ghanaians.Footnote 18 Similarly, in Aba, sex workers migrated from Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Owerri. Afikpo served as a destination for sex workers from Port Harcourt, Cross Rivers, Enugu, and Anambra. Additionally, women from Ikot Ekpene in Cross River State moved to Aba and Port Harcourt, drawn to the vast post-civil-war construction projects in the cities, which attracted large numbers of male laborers. Women from Ikom and Ogoja migrated to Warri and the post-Civil War period marked the first time women from these areas moved in substantial numbers to the northern states of Kano and Kaduna. In contrast, those from Obubra migrated to Calabar, Enugu, Abakaliki, Onitsha, and Lagos.Footnote 19
Regarding transborder migration, in the 1980s, international prostitution escalated due to Nigeria’s economic recession, the demand for unskilled labor in the agricultural sector in Europe, and the lenient migration policies in certain European nations, which caused an increase in women’s migration to countries like Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands (Akor Reference Akor2011; Adeyinka et al. Reference Adeyinka, Samyn, Zemni and Derluyn2021, 9, 27–31). Unlike during the colonial period, when transportation was primarily by boat, commercial airlines were often used in the postcolonial period to facilitate migration from Nigeria to Europe. Additionally, many African countries, including Nigeria, were transit points to their final European destinations for prostitution during this period (Achebe Reference Achebe2004).
From the 1970s to the 1980s, the forms of prostitution engaged by Eastern Nigerian sex workers changed. The streetwalking type of sex work, known in Igbo as ikwu n’uzo (standing on the road), became prominent in Eastern Nigeria after the Nigerian Civil War because, due to poverty, many women could not afford the upfront payment of rent required to secure a room in a brothel. Following the end of the war, federal soldiers continued to occupy local housing, exacerbating the accommodation crisis for returning residents and groups such as sex workers. In Onitsha, a woman named Mrs. Maria Balonwu stated that soldiers of the 5th Infantry Brigade occupied her nine-bedroom house until 1975.Footnote 20 As such, this scarcity of houses caused some sex workers to opt for streetwalking, accompanying the men home. Street sex workers conducted their business primarily at night, soliciting customers directly along the streets. They bargained fees with the clients and, once they agreed, the sex worker would follow them to a hotel or a house. Street sex hawkers were particularly vulnerable to assault, rape, and other forms of abuse. Additionally, this type of business was dependent on weather conditions. Fewer customers were expected during the rainy season, reducing earnings for sex workers. They were also more likely to face police raids and arrests, especially around social event centers such as cinemas, bars, and streets.Footnote 21
One of the most well-known red-light districts was Ama Awusa (Hausa area) in Aba, which became popular in the 1970s. This area, dominated by Hausa people from Northern Nigeria, was said to be a market for sexual services because most northern men who resided and traded in Aba were either single or without their wives. The Ninth Mile, a commercial area in Enugu, was another hub for street prostitution. In the 1970s, as before independence, beer bars were known locations for sex workers. Sex workers were identifiable by their distinctive clothing and heavy facial makeup. Trousers were rarely worn by women, except by sex workers, who wore loose-fitting, wide-legged trousers known as “Bongo.” Also, some of them were seen drinking, smoking, and dancing in beer parlors and dancehalls, which was considered disreputable for women.Footnote 22
Nevertheless, brothel-based prostitution remained the preferred option for some sex workers in the region. Owing to the oil boom and its role in accelerating sex work in Eastern Nigeria, brothel management continued to be lucrative and women from places such as Rivers, Calabar, and Cameroon continued to live in them upon arrival in Eastern Nigerian cities. Some popular brothels established in Aba in the 1970s and 1980s were Pioneer, VIP, Watchtower, Tessy Mainland, African City, Mojongo, and New Nigeria. In Enugu, hotels such as Paramount Hotels, Jideofo, and Dayspring sprang up. Similarly, in Afikpo, Father Lodge became a well-known establishment. In these brothels, many of the sex workers were from the Cross River Basin, Benue, Rivers, and Enugu. In Umuahia, the common brothels included the Central Hotel on Arochukwu Street and the Federal Hotel, while in Aba, the Continental Hotel was established in the 1970s. In Ikot Ekpene, during the 1970s and 1980s, a few brothels were established near the Ikot Ekpene Central Park, attracting business from motor passengers. Some of the well-known brothels in Ikot Ekpene were Esin Esin and Channel 10.Footnote 23
Some sex workers during this period also combined brothel and streetwalking types of prostitution. Some of them stayed in the brothels by day and engaged in street prostitution during the night to increase earnings, especially when they did not have many clients at the brothels and still had to pay their rent there. In commercial Eastern cities, such as Aba and Onitsha where the clientele was traders, sex workers combined both settings to maximize their incomes. In addition to maximizing earnings, a sex worker noted that some sex workers preferred to stay in the brothels by day to protect their identities and engage in streetwalking at night because “ abali na ekpuchi ha ,” which means that nights provided them with anonymity.Footnote 24 Furthermore, women who did not want to sell their sexual services to different men became kept women and were financially taken care of by their paramours. Many of the sex workers did not perform household chores such as cleaning, cooking, or washing for their clients. However, the women could perform dual roles, as they could have a regular lover for whom they rendered domestic and sexual services. According to a retired sex worker, “I did not clean or cook for men, except the man I had as my boyfriend. For that one, he was like my husband. He would bring foodstuff while I cooked. He was also financially responsible for me.”Footnote 25 For some sex workers, especially those who had low patronage due to age, unappealing physical features, or their location, they cleaned for clients for additional fees. Because respectability was essential to sex workers during this period, many of them rejected boys under the age of twenty because they found it disrespectful for younger clients to patronize them. This was their way of showing honor around their business. The ability of sex workers to choose their clients and determine the range of services they provide—such as cooking, cleaning, or companionship—emphasizes their agency in the sex industry.Footnote 26
Wealth accumulation among Eastern Nigerian sex workers, 1960–80
Regarding wealth accumulation, these sex workers did not have a fixed service fee; individual negotiations and economic conditions determined charges. The nature of sex work changed in the postcolonial period, especially after the Nigerian Civil War. After the war, more women began following their male clients to their homes rather than providing services in brothels. Staying overnight with a client was referred to as “daybreak,” which typically involved two rounds of sex and implied a higher fee compared to short service, which was one round. In Warri, before the 1970s, some Eastern sex workers charged 2 shillings for a short time, while daybreak was 10 shillings. Some wealthy clients gave the women huge amounts of money at that time, enough that some of them left sex work, built houses, or started businesses. European clients were known to be more generous than their African counterparts. In Warri, where many Eastern sex workers migrated, some of the clients were European sailors, which likely contributed to their higher spending.Footnote 27
In the 1970s, some sex workers in Onitsha were known to charge a kobo, a subunit of naira, which is Nigeria’s currency, for short services. At that time, kobo had some purchasing power. However, these prices did not reflect the overall earnings of sex workers, as some of them charged more, especially for extended arrangements. Inflation during the 1980s saw the decline in the value of kobo; the phrase “You are as cheap as a prostitute who collects kobo kobo from men” became a common way to criticize women’s morality in Ikot Ekpene, indicating the low amount some sex workers charged.Footnote 28 Nevertheless, the earnings some women accumulated through sex work demonstrates both economic agency and social embeddedness. With their income, Eastern Nigerian sex workers supported their families and provided for their relatives and children’s education, showing how they were still bound by familial ties. In some cases, sex workers acted as primary providers, mainly as widows or single parents, and their incomes were utilized within familial structures. In addition, some sex workers used their income to start businesses as either a more stable source of livelihood or as a retirement plan. Others acquired property and developed it for rental or residential use. Because of their work in the sex industry, they maintained their physical appearance by wearing fashionable clothes, jewelry, and other markers of affluence, which was essential in attracting wealthier clients.Footnote 29
When a retired sex worker was asked if the women in the profession had preferences in men, she responded, “For pesin wey hungry, e get particular chop?” This translates to: “When a person is hungry, do they ask for a specific type of food?” Similarly, many sex workers did not have preferences in terms of the ethnicity of their clients. The primary concern was the client’s generosity. Many respondents indicated that making money was more important to the sex workers than the physical attributes of the male clients. Ethnicity was not a significant factor in the clients’ preferences. Instead, the physical features of the sex workers and the affordability of their sexual services were the primary focus for male clients. In the Eastern region and other parts of Nigeria, no specific type of prostitution was associated with a particular community. Sex workers from various Nigerian regions engaged in different forms of prostitution, whether brothel-based, street-based, or a combination of both.Footnote 30 Nevertheless, brothel-based sex workers often charged higher fees, primarily due to the costs of rent. In the 1980s, rent for a single room in parts of Eastern Nigeria was around 20 naira per month. Urban areas, including Enugu and Onitsha, generally had higher rent, which in turn influenced the pricing arrangement adopted by sex workers.Footnote 31
In the early postcolonial era, the average age of women engaged in the sex industry was reported to range from sixteen to thirty-five years. However, this estimate relies on limited sources and may not fully reflect the ages of sex workers in local and transnational contexts. As previously mentioned, the industry appears more favorable to younger women as they attracted more clients. Consequently, older women faced a decline in income and clientele. Due to this challenge, sometimes some older sex workers transitioned from sex workers to establishing their own brothel businesses. As in the colonial period, sex workers continued to combine sex work with other sources of income, such as trade. In rural communities, some women farmed in the day and engaged in sex work at night. Some of them, who previously had no skills, learned how to trade. Many sex workers started small-scale businesses, such as selling firewood, food, or alcohol in front of houses or at specific locations. These economic activities supplemented their income.Footnote 32
Lastly, in addition to wealth accumulation, marriage was also a crucial arrangement for many sex workers as some considered it more important than prostitution. Many viewed the sex industry as a temporary phase before marriage. Some Eastern women abandoned their marriages to join prostitution. However, others hoped that prostitution would provide access to men, facilitating unions. Many of these women envisioned that marriage would bring them financial security at the end of their profession. In essence, marriage served as an exit plan for these women. However, the women’s desire for marriage should not be viewed only through an economic lens wherby they wanted men to cater to them. Instead, marriage helped to mitigate the negative societal attitude towards women who were hitherto engaged in sex work. In patriarchal societies, such as Eastern Nigeria, having a husband could serve as a shield for women. In the Cross River area, retired sex workers reported that with marriage, they did not experience any stigma. People would say in their defense, “After all, she is now married and has children.” Thus, marriage conferred respectability on them after they retired from sex work. This respectability also extended to the children they had within marriage. That way, they were not called the children of “ akunakuna ,” a common name in Eastern Nigeria for sex workers.Footnote 33
Conclusion
Despite Eastern Nigerian women’s active participation in economic activities, the postcolonial period intensified their marginalization through gendered exclusion from government-sponsored agricultural programs, credit schemes, and formal employment, especially after the Nigerian Civil War. Crude oil capitalism further undermined women’s livelihoods by increasing the neglect of agriculture—a sector in which women predominated—deepening female poverty and unemployment. These structural transformations shaped the evolution of sex work between 1960 and 1980. In the early postindependence years, prostitution followed colonial patterns as many Eastern Nigerian women migrated to urban centers within and outside Nigeria. Though urban infrastructure concentration continued to drive rural-urban migration, women’s access to formal wage labor remained limited by educational qualifications and gendered labor markets. Within these constrained opportunities, sex work emerged as one of the informal economic strategies through which women sought income and mobility. This article has argued that sex work in postcolonial Eastern Nigeria functioned as labor rather than moral decadence.
The Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) amplified poverty, displacement, and military presence, which expanded the sex industry and contributed to the growth of street-based prostitution as a survival strategy. Eastern Nigerian sex workers exercised their agency through their preference for the brothel-based type because of its relative safety and dignity. However, they resorted to street-based sex work in response to economic hardship and housing shortages during and after the war. This period also saw the significant migration of Eastern Nigerian women to Europe. Additionally, as the sex industry in Eastern Nigeria expanded during the oil boom of the 1970s, it became increasingly diverse, drawing women from other Nigerian regions as well as Ghana and Cameroon. In the postwar period, especially during the oil boom, Eastern Nigerian women moved to destinations with male-dominated infrastructure such as ports and oil refineries, which created demand and sustained a sex market. These practices refute the dominant narratives that frame sex work as victimhood. Although trafficking increased in the postcolonial period, many Eastern Nigerian sex workers retained significant control over their bodies, time, and income.
Within the sex economy, women negotiated prices according to the number of sexual encounters, client nationality, and location, invested in appearance to attract wealthier clients, and drew clear boundaries around the scope of their labor by restricting their services to sexual work alone. These reflect broader patterns of informal entrepreneurship and wage negotiations, underscoring sex work as a rational economic arrangement. Over time, many sex workers achieved occupational mobility by transitioning into brothel management, investing in other businesses, acquiring property, supporting families, and funding education. Marriage, for some, became a strategic exit from sex work and a means of escaping social stigma, revealing that Eastern Nigerian women navigated respectability politics alongside economic survival. By situating sex work within postwar and oil-driven economic change, this study contributes to debates on sex work as labor in Africa.
Open access
