1
Term Paper on the History of Prostitution in Ethiopia
By Biruk Shiferaw
1. Introduction
The existence of numerous altering legal definitions and pessimistic beliefs that revolve around
prostitution impeded writers from providing accurate definition to the term. However, the
meaning of prostitution resides in the interconnection of sex and money 1. Ditmore indicated that
organizations operating on sex work in collaboration with sex workers created and often use the
following definition of prostitution: “Negotiation and performance of sexual services for
remuneration with or without intervention by a third party (any managers, madams, pimps,
business owners, and colleagues making referrals); where those services are advertised or
generally recognized as available from a specific location ; and where the price of services
reflects the pressures of supply and demand.”2
The above definition shows that prostitution is a complicated and debatable issue because it
embraces both sex and [Link] spite of practically omnipresent condemnation, prostitution has
continued to exist through time and in most cultures. Some people contend that prostitution is
‘the oldest profession.’’ However, Vanessa and Marina argue that such an assertion is so vague
that it is only implicitly intended to signify the inevitability of prostitution as a social practice
and subsequently put forward the fact in the futility of efforts intended to eliminate it in the
modern world.4 Never the less, prostitution continues exists in all societies in both clandestine
and explicit forms in almost all contemporary urban locations.
Prostitution takes many forms and occurs in an enormous variety of settings. Some
manifestations of the sex industry are rearrangements designed not to violate local
laws.5According to Melissa, prostitution differs from sex work in that the term “sex work”
1
Ditmore, Melissa Hope (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Volume 1, (London. Greenwood
Press),25
2
ibid ,26
3
ibid,21
4
Vanessa, Munro., and Marina Della, Demanding Sex : Critical Reflections on the Regulation Of Prostitution.
(Hampshire ,England, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008),1
5
Hope, Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work,26
2
encompasses prostitution and other forms such as phone sex, pornography, stripping, and erotic
dancing.6
This study tries to explore the history of prostitution in Ethiopia with particular focus on Addis
Ababa. Besides, it attempts to identify the emergence of prostitution in Ethiopia and its
prevalence in Addis Ababa before, during and after the colonial period using the period of Italian
occupation of Ethiopia .
This study has three sections. The first one introduces the study has already provided definitions
of the term prostitution and some other qualitative and quantitative descriptions of the term. The
second section deals with the emergence of prostitution in Ethiopia and the nature and trends of
prostitution before the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. The third section discusses prostitution in
Ethiopia during the period of Italian occupation (1936-1941). The conditions of prostitution after
independence and during the Derg regime are discussed in the fourth section. The filth part deals
with evolving modus oprandi of prostitution in Addis Ababa and the final section provides short
conclusion. .
2. The Emergence of Prostitution in Ethiopia and its Prevalence in Addis Ababa before the
Colonial Period
2.1 Emergence of Prostitution in Ethiopia
Punkrust (1974) argued that prostitution emerged in Ethiopia at the seventeenth century in
Gonder city. According to Punkrust, prostitution is comparatively a new phenomenon in Ethiopia
for it emerged in the Middle Ages while it prevailed in Egypt since 400 [Link] also associated
prostitution with urbanization an the concomitant transformation of a given society from to
monetary economy. Although Punkrust has not explicitly distinguished between the traditional
type and the modern type of prostitution, he has indicated that the phenomena has transformed to
the latter type during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century following the establishment of
Addis Ababa and other relatively larger towns in Ethiopia.7
6
ibid,Xii
7
Richard Pankhurst, "The History of Prostitution in Ethiopia," Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12, no. 2 (1974): 159-78
3
Mayer (1962, cited in Yohannes 1998) associated prostitution with custom the society in which
divorced or widowed women who are engaged in selling local drinks simultaneously provide
sexual services to mostly caravan traders clandestine basis. These women received money,
different food items, as well as gifts (commonly jewelry and clothes) from their clients in return
to their services.8 Discreetness was crucial in such relationships because prostitution is equated
with adultery which is highly denounced among the Ethiopian society. However, both Punkrust’s
and Mayer’s explanations are limited to a certain region especially the northern part of Ethiopia.
William W. Sanger, presented a relatively elaborated explanation on prostitution and adultery in
Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in his book entitled The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and
Effects throughout the World 1858[2013]. Sanger indicated that in Abyssinia prostitution and
adultery take different forms and characteristics. He commenced his record from Tajura (the
present day Afar Region). Sanger elucidated the Issue as follows:
In Tajura men live with their wives for a short time, and then sell them. Parents are
known to hire their daughters out as prostitutes. One chief offered his daughter as a
temporary or permanent companion to a traveler, and a woman presented herself as
a candidate for a similar appointment, saying, by way of recommendation, that she
had already lived with five men. One strong evidence of the immorality of Tajura is
the fact that syphilis affects nearly the whole population, man and woman, sultan
and beggar, priests and their wives inclusive. 9
This indicates that prostitution and adultery are common in the area to the extent of selling
daughters, albeit the end users of the money are parents which in turn indicate a traditional way
of women trafficking. Besides, prostitution practiced and unchastely is prevalent among people
from all walks of life in the area.
Sanger has also explained the situation in Shoa. He described the issue as:
8
Yohannes Zelalem, Clients of Girl Child Prostitutes: Realities from Some Selected Areas of Addis Ababa. (MA
Thesis, Addis Ababa University, School of Graduate Studies, Addis Ababa , 1998),1-2
9
William W. Sanger, The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World ([EBook
#41873], URL: [Link] Released: January 19, 2013 Accessed, February 02, 2020), 389
4
In Shoa the king has one wife and five hundred concubines, the latter scattered in various
parts of his dominions. He makes a present to the parents of any girl he may desire, and is
usually well paid in return for the honor. The governors of provinces and cities follow his
example. …. Concubines are procured as well from the Christians as from
Mohammedans and pagans, but the latter are forced to declare themselves converted, for
Shoa is professedly a Christian kingdom. A favorite concubine holds the same position as
a married woman, and no distinction is made between legitimate and illegitimate
children. The court overflows with licentiousness, numerous adulteries take place, and
the example is followed by the people, among whom a chaste married couple is rare. The
sacerdotal class of Shoa is notoriously drunken and profligate; in a word, the morals of
the country are of the lowest description.10
Here, Sanger’s explanation seems a little bit exaggerated and confused. First he mixed up bride
price with payment for prostitutes. He had also contended that every man runs after a woman every
time. Moreover, Sanger did not indicate the actual period in which the above explanation took
place. Never the less, it is reasonable to conclude from Sanger’s work that prostitution commenced
in Ethiopia before the establishment of Gondar as capital of Ethiopia because his work depicts no
permanent settlement. .
[Link] of Prostitution in Addis Ababa before the Colonial Period
Prostitution in Ethiopia became rampant following the establishment of Addis Ababa as a capital
city of Ethiopia and other small towns, especially those found along the Ethio-Djibouti railway
line. There were two features of the early urbanisation of Addis Ababa and of the other towns that
are important for the history of prostitution in Ethiopia. The first is that almost all the inhabitants of
the towns were immigrants from the countryside. Due to the economic and social conditions of the
time, however, female immigrants, particularly the unmarried ones, had little chance of
employment outside of the service sector. Secondly, the city was always full of a large number of
temporary visitors and travellers who came to Addis Ababa to pursue their court cases and others
10
ibid,242
5
following the regional lords who stayed in town in the hope of getting appointments of the king. 11
Since most of these people are strangers to the city, they depended on the services of the various
eating, drinking and sleeping places. It is, therefore, clear that the hotel and bar business in the early
decades of this century was dominated by women and that their clients were mostly men who were
away from their homes.12
The foundation and rapid growth of Addis Ababa contributed for the expansion of sex work in the
capital due to the fact that the city became the hub for almost all types of transactions. 13 However,
the expansion did not immediately bring about the separation of prostitution from the kinds of
activities with which it had always been associated in the traditional context. In fact, for some time,
it appears that the mixing of prostitution with the hotel and bar business was magnified14.
During the 1900s and 1910s rapid expansion of drinking places particularly of places where the
local drinks, like Taj,talla and Aareki bets as well as hotels in Addis Ababa were rapidly
expanding. The Georgian Doctor, Paul Mérab (1921, cited in Bethlehem 2017) estimated that in
1913 there were about 100 Taj-bets which were only two in number in 1908 .He also added that in
the early 1920s, the number had gone beyond one thousand due to lack of administrative control
and at the same time the population of Addis Ababa was approaching 100,000. 15 He added that, in
fact, many of the buildings that the bar owners rented was owned either by the Emperor himself or
by the big people of the city like Nagadras Haile Giorgis.
According to Mérab(1921, cited in Bethlehem 2017) , these drinking places were mostly owned by
women ,some of who had retired after years of work in the “love business” but many others were,
“women who had histories of multiple divorce behind them or former slaves or servants of rich
people who wanted to put their little capital in the business of producing the drink made out of
honey. The clients of these places were single young towns men, passers-byes, rural types who
came to town for some business, soldiers and hoodlums. All the local drinking places had bed
rooms and beds or bedlike structures (sometimes two in a room) where the prostitutes and their
11
Bethlehem Tekola, ‘Negotiating Social Space: Sex-Workers and Social Context of Sex Work in Addis Ababa,’
African Study Monographs 29 (2005): 9
12
ibid
13
Belete Dejene,HIV/AIDS Related Risk Behavior and Condom Use Skill among Female Commercial Sex Workers
at Hotspot Areas of the Arada Sub-city. (MA thesis, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, October, 2014 )
14
Bethlehem Tekola, ‘Negotiating Social Space”,10
15
P. Mérab, “ Impressions d’ethiopie, II (Paris, 1921-29 ) in Bethlehem Tekola, Narratives of Three
Prostitutes in Addis Ababa , DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4499.1127, January 2017:Accessed 2/9/[Link]
6
clients make love shifting throughout the day and throughout the night. Migrant females who either
flee away from their husbands or who are chased by acute poverty were the sex sellers.
Prostitution in Addis Ababa During The period of Italian occupation (1936-41)
Johan Ringdal, in her book entitled Verdens vanskeligste yrke (Love for sale : a world history of
prostitution translated from the Norwegian by Richard Daly in 1952 ) explained the relationship
between colonialism and prostitution and the exceptionality of Ethiopia in an interesting manner : .
When all the battles had died away and all the borders were drawn, the only remaining
prince in Africa was the Christian emperor of Ethiopia—who, perhaps because of his
faith and certainly because of his diplomatic contacts with Europe and his spies, was able
to scrupulously follow the Europeans’ game—and eventually to beat them at it by
playing them against one another. In these same years, prostitution spread over almost the
whole continent, following on the heels of the colonial armies and in pacts with the
expansion of colonial administration. The construction of the Suez Canal and many
railways drew large groups of black workers away from their tribes; neophyte women
prostitutes abandoned agriculture and followed the men. When the infrastructure was
established, the railway functionaries, soldiers, and businessmen arrived to replace the
construction workers. Any woman with sex to sell would have a continual supply of
customers.16
Here she wanted to reefer to Menilik II when she says the emperor of Ethiopia who made the
country unique in terms the impacts of colonialism. But fifty years after their defeat at the battle
of Adowa, the Italians came to Ethiopia and made their dreams true for at list five years. Their
legacies also continued and are still persisting in Ethiopia. In 1935 Mussolini launched campaign
on Ethiopia and Italian troops entered Addis Ababa in 1936.17
Bahru Zewde mentioned the impact of colonialism on the spread of colonialism in Ethiopia as
follows “On an informal plane, initially sponsored by the officials through the importation of
16
Nils Johan Ringdal, [Verdens vanskeligste yrke] Love for sale: a world history of prostitution / Nils Johan
Ringdal ; translated from the Norwegian by Richard Daly. , 1952
17
Bausi Alessandro, Madamato and Colonial Concubinage in Ethiopia: A Comparative Perspective Aethiopica 14
(2011),1
7
European practitioners of the trade, prostitution assumed a widespread character. It has often
been cited as one of the legacies of Italian rule in Ethiopia”. 18
Fascist encouraged the expansion of prostitution in major urban centres. Not only widows but
also married women were persuaded to join the new occupation, tempted by Italian gifts and
pays to prostitutes. At any rate the expansion of prostitution had many negative consequences. It
broke many families. Some Ethiopian prostitutes were used by the Italians as intelligence
workers like the bandas. Prostitution also created a fertile ground for the spread of different
venereal diseases. It contributed to unwanted pregnancies which often encouraged abortion.19
Conclusion
Generally, the Italian occupation of Ethiopia brought about the increasing commercialisation and
expansion of prostitution in Ethiopia. The fact that the number of Italian men and women who
came to the country was unbalanced contributed to the situation. To meet the demand of a very
large army, the colonial authorities encouraged divorced and single women to come to towns and
set-up bars and brothels. To satisfy the interests of their army they even tried to import
prostitutes from Europe. Citing Poggiali as his source, Pankhurst states that the Italians imported
some French prostitutes to the country. But soon, the French prohibited the act due to its
20
implications for “French racial dignity”. Since using Italian women as prostitutes was strictly
forbidden for reasons of prestige, the Italian army had to depend on Ethiopian women for sexual
gratification. Both before and after the conflict, the Italians had a rather care-free attitude
towards sex with “native women”, somewhat contrary to their strict racial policies in other
matters. Before the conflict, the Italians made extensive use of native women as local wives,
called “madames” in Eritrea. The “madams”, in the words of Pankhurst, “had become an integral
scene (of colonial society in Eritrea) where there continued to be a chronic shortage of European
women. The preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia also brought about the expansion of
prostitution in Eritrea. The coming of a large number of Italian soldiers and labourers to the
colony created extensive demand for sex, leading to considerable sexual violence by Italian men
on local women.21
18
Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855 -1991,( Oxford, James Carrey, 2001) 254
19
Minale Adugna, Women and Warfare in Ethiopia: A Case Study of Their Role During the Campaign of
Adwa,1895/96, and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-41( Gender Issues Research report Series - no. 13)
20
Richard Pankhurst, "The History of Prostitution in Ethiopia," Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12, no. 2 (1974):178
21
Bethlehem Tekola, Narratives of Three Prostitutes in Addis Ababa , DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4499.1127, January
2017:Accessed 2/9/[Link] ,16
8
The war had, in fact, a significant effect on Italian attitude toward sex in Africa. One of the chief
ways of attracting volunteers into the Italian army was the spreading of pornographic literature
and pornographic pictures displaying the tender, attractive bodies of Ethiopian women. The
Fascist authorities sponsored that publication in Italy of numerous erotic or semi-erotic postcards
showing the beauties of Ethiopian womanhood. Soldiers’ songs were composed about the
charms of Ethiopian girls.22
As a result, Addis Ababa following the occupation had become the main centre of prostitution in
Italian East Africa. Many Ethiopian women, single or divorced, were forced into the practice,
some quite literally.
22
ibid ,21
9
References
Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855 -1991,( Oxford, James Carrey, 2001) 254
Bausi, Alessandro. Madamato and Colonial Concubinage in Ethiopia: A Comparative
Perspective Aethiopica 14 (2011)
Belete Dejene,HIV/AIDS Related Risk Behavior and Condom Use Skill among Female
Commercial Sex Workers at Hotspot Areas of the Arada Sub-city. MA thesis, Addis Ababa
University, Addis Ababa, October, 2014
Bethlehem Tekola, ‘Negotiating Social Space: Sex-Workers and Social Context of Sex Work in
Addis Ababa,’ African Study Monographs 29 (2005)
Bethlehem Tekola, Narratives of Three Prostitutes in Addis
AbabaDOI10.13140/RG.2.1.4499.1127, January 2017:Accessed 2/9/[Link] ,16
Hope, Ditmore, Melissa (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Volume 1, London.
Greenwood Press.2013
Minale ,Adugna. Women and Warfare in Ethiopia: A Case Study of Their Role During the
Campaign of Adwa,1895/96, and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-41 Gender Issues Research
report Series - no. 13,1-41
Nils, Johan Ringdal, [Verdens vanskeligste yrke] Love for sale: a world history of prostitution /
translated from the Norwegian by Richard Daly. , 1952
P. Mérab, “ Impressions d’ethiopie, II (Paris, 1921-29 ) in Bethlehem Tekola, Narratives of
Three Prostitutes in Addis Ababa , DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4499.1127, January 2017:Accessed
2/9/[Link]
Richard, Pankhurst. "The History of Prostitution in Ethiopia," Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12,
no. 2 (1974):178-212
Vanessa, Munro. and Marina Della, Demanding Sex : Critical Reflections on the Regulation Of
Prostitution. Hampshire ,England, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008
William W. Sanger, The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the
World ([EBook #41873], URL: [Link] Released: January 19, 2013 Accessed,
February 02, 2020
Yohannes, Zelalem. Clients of Girl Child Prostitutes: Realities from Some Selected Areas of
Addis Ababa. MA Thesis, Addis Ababa University, School of Graduate Studies, Addis Ababa ,
1998
10
