8

COMMERCIAL SEX ACTIVITIES AND TOURISM IN

AFRICA: A HISTORICAL EXPLORATION

Omon Metty Osiki, Ph.D.

University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria.

Introduction

This chapter discusses commercial sex activities and their impact on

tourism in Africa. It starts with the premise that commercial sex
activities promote domestic and international tourism. It argues that
commercial sex activities have socio-economic potential that can
influence and promote the tourism industry in Africa. Using selected
examples from actoss the African continent, the study explores the
historical interactions that gave birth to commercial sex activities as
viable tourism promoters. It interrogates pieces of archival,
newspapet and secondary materials in order to successfully discuss
the seemingly neglected theme of the relationship between the
socio-economic factors of migration, commercial sex activities and
tourism in Africa. In this connection, the study offers a needed
perspective and fills a big lacuna in the study of the relationship
between migration, commercial sex work and tourism.

The complex transformation that commercial sex work

affords participants has made the whole process a rich historical
exploration. Indeed, the commercial sex sector is a multi-billion
dollar business that employs millions of women and sometimes men
across national and international borders. For instance, in Southeast
Asian countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and

Thailand, which are considered as the global commercial sex tourism

182 OmonM. Osiki

destinations, the sex industry accounts for between 2 and 14 per

cent of the gross domestic product.’ In addition, studies have shown
that the commercial sex industry is engrained in the Southeast Asian
sub-region’s economic, social and pdlitical infrastructure.? For
instance, in 1980, a year regarded as ‘’hailand’s Year of Tourism, the
then Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand was quoted to have
encouraged provincial governments to introduce “erotic
entertainment” to promote tourism.’ Elsewhere in Europe, incomes
for commercial sex workers in Sweden in the late 1990s were as high
as US $1,750 a day. This amounted to about a month’s earnings in a
regular unskilled job.’ Similarly, it was reported that Arabian women
made as much as $2,000 a night in the Gulf States in the 1990s,
while a Latvian commercial sex worker earned around $5,000 per
month, 20 times the average wage of her contemporaries during the
same period.”

Moreover, in several countries of the world, commercial sex

activities and other related businesses are part of the tourism
business. They benefit both individuals and governments and
constitute an important aspect of the socio-cultural and economic
sectors. Indeed, the sex industry links the local with the global village
and captures the interplay of migration, commercial sex work and
tourism.

In the same vein, African countries have witnessed their own

form of commercial sex toutism. This is despite the negative
outlook that has faced the industry. In a moral-conscious society
such as Africa, commercial sex activities are considered as part of
the dark recesses of human experience. Accordingly, commercial sex
workers have poor reputation and their occupation attracts social
stigma. Besides, commetcial sex activities are often subjected to

censorship and at best treated with the utmost secrecy.° This is not

Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 183

limited to Africa. For example, in Judaco-Christian cultures,

commercial sex activities were considered objects of censure.’ This
is not to say that the underground business was seen as “a single
trans-historical” phenomenon in those cultures. In some instances, it
was patt of Judaco-Christian folklore. This chapter is structured in a
simple form. It examines the nexus between commercial sex work
and the tourism business in selected African countries since the
colonial times. It highlights their peculiar characteristics as well as

their inherent challenges in the context of the tourism business.

Conceptual Clarifications

A major characteristic of commercial sex activities is that it involves

sex act for payment.’ With regards to scholarship, commercial sex
activities have received considerable attention in the literature of
most civilisations and religions. V. Bullough and B. Bullough in their
studies of commercial sex activities in historical perspectives
highlight the origins of and stimuli for commercial sex activities in
some major societies.” Like Neil Boyd and John Lowman,”
Bullough and Bullough emphasized female commercial sex activities
and the contributions of the female gender to the development of
the underground business. Their special focus on female sex work
agrees with the trend in scholarship on commercial sex activities.

In trying to explain the causes of commercial sex work,

scholars have examined socio-economic, cultural and_ political
considerations. Emmanuel Akyeampong’s definition of commercial
sex work as “the commodification of casual sex” is highly
instructive, but generally agrees with the popular definition of the
phenomenon." On the other hand, Sukanya Harintrakal has argued
that imbalance in male-female relations, whereby women are
“socialized into saving themselves for Mr. Right while men are
184 OmonM. Osiki

granted sexual freedom” is a major cause of women’s involvement

in commercial sex work.'? As plausible as this conclusion may be,
the factor of sclf-indulgence or acquisitiveness cannot be completely
ruled out. Against this is the feminist view that commercial sex work
is “morally undesirable” no matter what economic or tourism
advantages that may accrue from it, because it is one of “the most
graphic examples of men’s domination of women.”"” While this view
may sound protective of commercial sex workers, it is a major
reason why commercial sex workers and feminist hardly agree on
the nature of their business. As a result of this contradiction, Boyd
and Lowman have argued that it is impossible to understand the
concept of commercial sex work outside the context of international
market mechanism, gender structures and a global class system."
Moreover, poverty and acquisitiveness have been identified
as two major factors that can predispose women to commercial sex
work. While it has been argued elsewhere that poverty and other
related issues can explain the phenomenon of commercial sex work,
some analysts have suggested that patterns of demand and supply of
commercial sex have reflected economic disparities at the
international level.’ The examples of commercial sex activities in
Africa and Southeast Asia suffice to illustrate this point. In
Southeast Asia, for instance, the development of a large sex industry
has been encouraged by demands from tourists, military personnel
and businessmen from North America, Europe and Asia. In the
same vein, the disruption of traditional economies of some African
and Asian countries as a result of the growth of foreign-sponsored
industries, provided a fertile ground and boosted the supply side of
commercial sex activities.'* Accordingly, young girls and women
who could neither find comfortable jobs nor fit properly into the
new economy filled the vacant positions created by the demand for

Commercial Sex Activities and Touxjsm in Africa 185

sexual activities by international and local clients. To this end, the

marginal position of females in the labour market as well as lack of
social and economic alternatives for women provided the incentives

for commercial sex work to thrive in those African and Asian

countries.

Criminal Censure of Commercial Sex Work

The criminalization of commercial sex work has a long history.” Up

to the early 1900s, there were various campaigns to suppress
commercial sex activities in North America and Britain. The
prevailing feeling of police and medical authorities was that
commercial’ sex activities were not only inevitable, a natural
. reflection of male lust but also an outlet for that lust protecting
respectable womanhood.” Hence, censorship was discouraged. For
instance, commercial sex activities were tolerated by policing
authorities across North America as long as they were confined to
certain “restricted” or “segregated” district located in lower class
areas (and often as long as bribes were dutifully paid to the police by
the operators of the brothels). In the same vein, criminal law was
geared primarily towards the exploiters of commercial sex workers.”
In Britain, regulationism took legal expression in the form of the
Contagious Diseases Acts (1864, 1866, and 1969), requiting that
commercial sex workers, but not their clients, submit to venereal
disease inspection.”

From. 1900 onwards, as part of the world general social

purity movement across Britain and North Ametica, the
prohibitionists lobbied government to enact tougher laws not only
against the exploiters of commercial sex workers, but also the
workers themselves. In the United States and Canada, this campaign
led to the closure of the “restricted district” often with the result
186 OmonM. Osiki

that commercial sex activities would spring up elsewhere. In most

US states, this campaign led to the criminalization of commercial sex
work itself. In North America and Britain, pimping, procuring and
offences related to the running of commercial sex work
establishment were indictable or felonious offences to which prison
terms were not uncommon. In the US in 1978, more women were
convicted of commercial sex work offences than of any other
crime.” Similarly, the various African countries have laws that

condemn commercial sex work.

The African Example of Commercial Sex Work

The nature of commercial sex activities in Africa derives to some

degree from traditional social practices. For example, in parts of

Cameroon, it was usually considered indecent to have sex outside
the institution of marriage. Surprisingly, married women apparently
_ enjoyed the right to their bodies. Thus, among the Bassa, sex outside
marriage was discouraged. Yet, in cases of extra-marital sex, the
lover owed the husband only a fine of a chicken in recompense,
which formalized his liaison and recognized the woman’s “freedom
of sexual partner.”” In a slightly different scenario among the
Ewondo of Cameroon, a greedy, polygamous man profited from his
wives’ sexual adventure by subjecting their sexuality to commercial
venture. As patt of the commercialisation and commoditisation
arrangements, he could “rent” his wives temporarily to their lovers
they were caught with. The service was purchased at a rate set by the
owner.”

In a similar cultural practice among the Duala of Cameroon,

women wete rather routinely sold or given to brothers, male
relatives, friends, and clients without concern for their opinions.”
On the other hand, the men profited from the commercialisation of
Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 187

female sexuality. In a different case, the Fulbe of northern

Cameroon, who assimilated aspects of Hausa culture, had no
opposition to commercial sex work in principle even though they
frowned on pre-marital sexual telationships among _ their
adolescents.”

Remarkably, in some trado-Islamic Hausa cities, commetcial

sex activities were conducted underground because Hausa
communities were part of an Islamic culture in which women were
expected to be secluded from their male counterparts. However, it is
reported that in 1932 Margery Perham obsetved that a line of
French-speaking immigrants waited “to be circumcised” in order to
be permitted to patronize commercial sex workers.” Based on the
findings by Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, it can be observed that
Hausa commercial sex workers operated what they called Karuwai or
courtesan system. In the Karwwai system, the workers lived cloistered
together and waited to be patronized by clients, whose primary
motive was not always to obtain sex. Nevertheless, clients obtained
sex after they had established some level of cordiality with the
women or after they had given them gifts. However, the commercial
values of the system went beyond mere material gifts. Indeed,
studies have shown that by 1973, wealthy Karuwai women owned
several houses in Katsina and other cities in Hausaland and that
there were several other “how-much-you-go-pay” Karuwai who lived
on their income from commercial sex work.” In addition, the
Karuwai women ensured that attention was shifted to them during
the colonial and post-colonial periods, especially due to the giddying
trate of socio-political and power shift from traditional to western
ways of life in the area. |

The practice in East Africa was slightly different from what

obtained in West Africa, though their characteristics were markedly
188 OmonM. Osiki

similar. For instance, in Nairobi, migration for commercial sex work

appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century in the railroads
work camp. It was linked to two apparently independent factors: the
large numbet of male workers and the housing crisis.” By the 1920s,
a new form of commercial sex work, which was different from the
street hawking type, developed. It was called Malaya (a Swahili word
for commercial sex activitics). In the Pangani district, Malaya
flourished and attracted the interest of both the old and young. By
its operation, the Malaya was an arrangement whereby independent
and discteet women rented and even bought rooms or shanties to
receive men and act out martied life, treating and caring for their
clients like husbands.” Under this system, women were their own
bosses. Unsurprisingly, the workers in the Ma/aya arrangement were
women who had successfully escaped the encumbrances imposed on
them by the cultures and traditions of their traditional communities.
As a result of theit exposure to colonialism, most of them
strove to break off any connections with their rural communities. In
that regard, they worked hard to be self-reliant and wholeheartedly
embraced the Ma/aya lifestyle. Because of their determination to
succeed, they made a lot of profits from the trade and lived in
affluence compated with their neighbours who were simply
housewives.” Indeed, women in the Malaya arrangement were
largely driven into commetcial sex work by the desire to be
economically stable. Hence, they exhibited traits that accentuated
their commercial values, such as elaborate hair-do, and other similar
behaviours. They were quite aware of the fact that commertci! 3ex
work was a cash-only business and guarded their trade jealously.”
To these women, therefore, sex was more than mere pleasure; it was
also about power. In that connection, commercial sex work offered

the women numerous socio-economic and political options with

Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 189

which to choose from. In fact, it was an instrument of wealth and a

rool for self-advancement for the women.” Never shy of flaunting
their affluence, Ma/aya women wete very attractive to local and
international tourists who visited their communities. They exploited
the situation to their advantage against the understandably strong
demand for their services.

The Malaya system was similar to the wazi-wagi (or “walking

prostitutes,” who solicited in the streets) practice in Kenya. As a
practice, the wazi-wazi took clients to their hotel rooms for sex
charged in quarter-hour increments. In addition, they could recruit
customers from their own homes, even in front of their own doors.
The trade brought a certain wealth to the most enterprising of them.
Compared to the Malaya, wazi-wazi women were less independent.
There were some plausible grounds for this happening. First, unlike
the Malaya, most wazi-wazi had not broken with their communities.
On the contrary, the wazi-wazi women were seen as “good daughters
and wives” who had gone into exile to help their rural households
survive and pay taxes and debts incurred by family members.
Second, the »azi-wazi women were counted upon to solve other
family problems such as helping to pay the necessary bride-prices for
their brothers’ marriages.” Notwithstanding their lack of full
independence, the wazi-wagi occupied an important position in
power and gender telations in their communities. Expectedly, in
order to maintain the high status which their society accorded them,
they refused to be completely cut off from the cultures and
traditions of their people. Understandably, they perceived
commercial sex work as a means to an end.

The case of the organisation of the commercial sex business in

Mombasa was interestingly striking. In that part of East Africa,
migration for commercial sex work became more formalized in the
190 Omon M. Osiki

beginning of the twentieth century. However, the trade was already

booming in the nineteenth century. Following the abolition of the
slave trade by the British in 1873 and of slavery in 1907 in Mombasa
and its environs, the status of women on the atea changed.” Studies
have shown that because of the struggle to adjust to the new
colonial regime, women in the atea often divorced their husbands or
repudiated mattiage entirely in order to engage in commercial work.
Consequently, Mombasa later assumed the status of one of the sex
tourism capitals of East Aftica. One of the immediate results of this
was continued migration to the coastal area. Indeed, it continued to
attract more immigrants from the surrounding communities, and by
1975 about two-thirds of immigrant women in the city were
commercial sex workers.*> While there was obviously a great deal of
other reasons for the influx of people to Mombasa, there is a good
reason to believe that commetcial sex activities were at the heart of
the tourism business in Mombasa and its environs.

Central and Southern African cities experienced a similar

situation as those of East Africa. For instance, in the 1950s in
Kisangani, some divorced and widowed women spent considerable
time as commercial sex workers in order to raise the capital to open
shops or establish other investments to fall back on in their old age.
Caught between the demands of African traditional cultures and the
exigencies of colonialism (ot modernity), these women strove hard
to make a name for themselves in a political economy that was
seemingly biased in favour of the male folks. Like the divorced or
widowed category, some other independent women simply went
into commercial sex work for the benefits that would accrue from it.
In reality, some of the independent women became mistresses to
wealthy Africans or tourists in their communities. They became

known as Vedeltes by the local communities because of their level of

Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 191

affluence.” In addition, theit elegant appearances bore testimony to

their feminine liberty, social sophistication, high level of flexibility
and social mobility within the Kisangani society. As a result of this,
men were often disposed to hang out with them. Moreover, they
were particularly sought after by the local wealthy men and
European tourists and administrators.” However, the social
extremism of their appeatances bred its own contradictions. Hence,
the Vedettes easily attracted crude labeling from their host
communities.

This negative estimation also affected Kinshasa commercial

sex workers who were labelled “free women.” A characteristic of
these women is that they loved to be showered with expensive and
elegant gifts by men who patronized them. In fact, the experienced
ones among them chose their clients based on their financial
standing and could politely reject those they considered less affluent,
beneath their financial status and social sophistication. This
excessive romanised self-worth distinguished the “Kinshasa women”
from other commercial sex workers in the sub-region. In fact, these
women were happy and proud that they were able to exploit their
newfound feminine freedom to advance upward on the socio-
cultural ladder that hitherto apparently undermined their flexibility.
Accordingly, they flaunted their wealth by wearing expensive and
elegant ornaments, lived in expensive houses and worked hard to
ensure their future well-being.” Moreover, they were aggressive in
their trade and sometimes displayed immoral brutishness that
distinguished them from other women in their community. Not
surprisingly, the “Kinshasa women” did not hide the fact that they
had accepted their status as women wedded to a profession that
demanded the best from them. Their contemporaries in Kigali were
not different. In that city, commercial sex workers received men in
192 OmonM. Osiki .

their apartments, prepared food for them and had drinks with them
to create and stimulate romantic bonding. Their male-clients
regarded their liaisons with them as “second” or “third office,”
indicating that such chents considered such places as an abode for
relaxation and “a home-away-from-home.”” Quite bow the Kigali
women were able to seal their deals with ease is a subject of debate,
However, there is no doubt that the gradualism implicit in their
operations was deeply entrenching.

Elsewhere in West Africa, port cities were important centres

of commercial sex work. The truly decisive factor in that regard was
the impact of European imperialism on the coastal communities of
West Africa. For instance, the construction of roads, railways, and
harbours, as well as European easy trade contacts with these
communities facilitated movement of commercial sex workers and
their clients across West Africa. Hence, by the 1930s, the town of
Opobo in the coastal area of Calabar served as a fecruitment centre
for commercial sex workers who were trafficked to major cities
along the Atlantic coast of Africa (also called the Gulf of Guinea).
Indeed, some studies have shown that more than fifty women in the
arca lived and practiced commercial sex trade in the 1930s.” Later
on in the 1940s, many commercial sex workers migrated from the
area to the Gold Coast (colonial Ghana) where they made fortunes
from commercial sex activities. 7

Simultaneously, the Obubra area of Cross River Basin was

also notorious for grooming and supplying commercial sex workers
to major cities along the Gulf of Guinea. It should be emphasized
that before the establishment of formal colonial rule, communities in
the area became exposed to the activities of European traders,
explorers and soldiers, Between 1888 and 1909, for example, there
was influx of foreigners to the area who had liaisons with local
7

Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 193

concubines of mistresses. Further, beginning from the 1920,

commercial sex workers in the area were found in Calabar, Port
Harcourt, Lagos, coastal cities of Cameroon, Fernando Po
(Equatorial Guinea), and in the Gold Coast cities of Accra, Kumasi,
and Sekondi, and Takoradi, among others. In fact, archival and other
sources indicate that there were more than 500 Obubra commercial
sex workers in the Gold Coast in the 1940s."’ These women earned
money and material benefits and remitted some of their profits to
their families who they left behind in their communities. In a sense,
the comradeship in pleasure benefitted all the coastal cities involved
in the business.

In other instances, young ladies in the Cross River area were

kidnapped and trafficked to cities in West Africa and other areas in
Africa. Further, some of the ladies were tricked out of their
communities through pseudo-marriage arrangements. This led to
organized human trafficking networks where women played
important roles with respect to the trips and travels, accommodation
in the destination points as well as security at the transit and
destination points.” It can, therefore, be said that the growth of
commercial sex business was one of the major events that shaped
the social history of the Cross River area before Nigeria’s
independence in 1960.

Aside the Cross River Basin area, commercial sex work also
flourished in the Gold Coast. The business predates colonial rule.
Interestingly, Ghanaian scholats such as Akyeampong and others
have emphasized that commercial sex work in the Gold Coast was
not an urban phenomenon brought about by colonialism. Rather,
commercial sex activities existed in the area since the pre-colonial
times.” What is worth stressing is that colonialism seems to have

emboldened commercial sex workers for some obvious reasons. For

194 Omon M. Osiki

instance, almost all salaried jobs were held by men. Consequently,

women were forced to seek ways to be accommodated in the
colonial regime, including serving as market women and commercial
sex workers in cities.’ In addition, the sexual imbalance in colonial
towns provided an opportunity for women interested in commercial
sex work to prosper and showcase their potential freedom from
cultural and traditional hindrances.”

Not surprising, Europeans who resided in the coastal areas

were used to African women who were willing to exchange sex for
money. As observed elsewhere, what was remarkably new about
commercial sex work during the period was its explicit connection
to material accumulation.” Expectedly, new innovations were
promoted and old methods refined. Therefore, there was the
emergence in the cities of a very specific new category of
independent women who could meet their own needs and the needs
of their families, particularly their children, without help from
anyone and without depending on a man unless under accepted
social arrangements that lacked any economic relation of
dependence.”

Thus, from the beginning of colonialism, areas such 4

construction sites including railroad work sites, the mining
complexes, and other places where young adult male workers wert
concentrated attracted commercial sex workers in their large
numbers. Besides, the remarkable speed of modernizatoa
introduced by the colonial state was advantageous to the women
concerned. Needless to say that, those African colonial cities which
benefited from the influx of immigrants, were conceived and
designed to be remarkably different from the rural areas of
countryside, This fact served as a major catalyst for the influx of
people to those cities.“ To the affected women, sex was a form of
Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 195

socio-economic currency and a mark of feminine power. It could be

hired, bought or sold.

Commercial Sex Work and Tourism in Africa Today

Is a way, commercial sex work has been modernized with pimps

onc organized networks playing important roles. In Africa since the
colonial period, the trade has become a survival strategy for many
families reduced to poverty. In several instances, commercial sex
work has benefitted from the women’s own initiatives and their
desire to make success out of the business. In a way, these women
may be considered as entrepreneurs within the informal sector of
capitalism. The services rendered by these women, which include
sex, but also a whole series of household tasks such as preparing
meals, serving beet, laundry, ironing, and providing relaxation for

their clients are important segment of the tourism industry.”

However, as it is currently constituted, it appears that
commercial sex industry needs to be better organized and regulated
to attract the attention of more tourists. To be sure, the sub-sector is
still largely controlled by pimps who exploit both the commercial
sex workers and their clients. Second, most of the operational
jocations of commercial sex workers remain shrouded in secrecy to
the extent that they may be difficult to locate by both local and
ynternational tourists, Third, as corollary to the second point, there ts
need for more investment in the sub-sector to bring the trade to the
jevel in which it is practiced in the Western world and Asia, For
instance, pub or club houses are still very few and under-developed
in many African cities, It is still impossible to say with complete
certainty the amount of revenues contributed into the economy by
the various night clubs and commercial sex activities. Certainly,
196 OmonM. Osiki

investment in that sub-sector would help to bridge the gap between

commercial sex work and tourism on the continent.

Fourth, the issue of insecurity needs to be addressed by both

the government and other stakeholders in the commercial sex
business in particular and the tourism industry in general. The
possibility of violent attacks by hoodlums is consistently present.
Violent attacks on commercial sex workers and tourists must be
taken seriously. Indeed, in a situation of insecurity the possibility of
death or maiming cannot be ruled out. The heavy expenditure of
money and personnel needed to develop the industry must be
protected by the state. This is one area where industry leaders and

other stakeholders need to form a synergy and mutual assistance.

Conclusion

Contemporary commercial sex work in Africa has benefitted from

numerous organized pre-colonial and colonial commercial sex
activities on the continent. While commercial sex activities started
during the pre-colonial period, the nature of the colonial state
helped to facilitate the relationship between commercial sex
activities and tourism on the continent. For instance, in traditional
Aftican society, a “free woman” was often seen as a serious
challenge to certain cultural considerations such as marriage
practices where the man played prominent roles. This situation of
things changed drastically during the colonial period. Accordingly,
several women exploited the new regime making changes in their
situation and taking advantage of the new conditions created by
European colonialism. Consequently, some of them abandoned their
traditional communities and husbands to seek opportunities in cities
where tourism and other socio-economic activities were fairly better
developed. Once in the cities, most of the women discovered that

Commercial Sex Activities and Tourism in Africa 197

they could survive by dint of hard work and feminine flexibility.

Hence, traditional criteria for socio-economic mobility were replaced
by new ones and the women exploited the situation to demonstrate
their adaptability to the. new era characterised by excessive
competition and struggle for survival. .

Needless to say that woman rose to the occasion offered by

colonialism to advance their status. They ensured that their services
were commoditised in their favour. However victimized the women
were, their new status empowered them to challenge ritual authority
system, culture-based social status and gendet conventions that

defined success based on physical power and strength instead of

socio-economic and political successes,