ABSTRACT
Research on the dynamics of, and efforts to regulate, the sex industry continues to grow. Attention has focused on the social production of prostitution and the geographies of sexuality by national and international socio-legal practices. Migration of young women to urban centres in Nigeria and West Africa was a common feature of colonialism. Transnational prostitutes in colonial Nigeria regularly deployed their kinship networks to facilitate their work. A letter written in 1941 by the District Officer Obubra to the Colonial Resident of Ogoja Province on the problem of ‘Cross River harlots’ showed that women selling sex on the Gold Coast lived with members of their ethnic groups in the ‘strangers’ quarters’. Commercial sex in colonial Nigeria was controlled through both civil and criminal legislations. The organization of sex work in contemporary Nigeria is shaped by a combination of different factors, including the law, religious morality, economics, new media, and local and global social movements, among others.
