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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Between culture and poverty: the Queen Mother phenomenon and the Edo international sex trade
Author:Adesina, Oluwakemi A.ISNI
Year:2005
Periodical:Humanities Review Journal
Volume:5
Pages:28-46
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:prostitution
human trafficking
poverty reduction
Edo
Abstract:Prostitution has become a tolerated if not a consciously promoted phenomenon in Edo State, Nigeria, in the light of prevailing socioeconomic realities. International prostitution is regarded as a way of poverty alleviation. The international sex trade, which began in the mid-1980s, involves the trafficking of young girls across international borders to serve as foreign exchange-earning prostitutes in various countries. Prostitution is not an accepted norm among the Edo, but some of the people's cultural practices tolerated prostitution in the past and this has been reinforced for economic reasons. The Idia Renaissance project - Idia being a 16th-century Benin Queen Mother who was known for all that was dignifying to womanhood - was set up for the eradication of prostitution through the rehabilitation of deported women and the training of young school leavers in handicraft to discourage the rising trend in prostitution. The present author contends, however, that this project is not enough to put an end to prostitution. The crisis of prostitution is a socioeconomic one which needs to be solved at its roots: poverty. Bibliogr., online sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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