Sex War: Ghanaian Prostitutes Battle Nigerian Invaders
They are currently spoiling for war, P.M.NEWS has learnt through News One, a Ghanaian news outfit.
The sex workers who operate in Adum, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti region, said they were disenchanted that younger and prettier girls from Nigeria are gradually taking over the sex business as they could hardly retain their usual customers.
According to investigation, if not for the intervention of the assembly member for the area, Albert Osei-Banahene, the enraged sex workers would have protested nude and marched from one office building to another, just to get the authorities to come to their aide.
According to one of the sex workers, “it is not that they are better than us in bed but as you know, most men prefer younger girls and these Nigerian girls are younger.
“Some are still in their teens and their agents protect them but we do not have agents who make things easier for us so. So, the conditions of work are not fair. We would start attacking any underage ashawo from Nigeria because they are spoiling the market.”
Though both groups are prostituting, the Ghanaian girls have cleverly named themselves commercial sex workers while they call their Nigerian counterparts ‘ashawos,’ a more derogatory term for prostitutes.
We learnt that a group of Nigerians take these girls to Ghana where they link them up with prominent Ghanaians and share some percentage of the money the prostitutes get from the trade.
According to the Ghanaian sex workers, the arrival of sexier girls from Nigeria is making business very competitive and compelling them to either lower their rates or lose customers.
Not pleased about the development, the disillusioned sex workers have declared their preparedness to hit the streets in protest should authorities fail to respond to their call and put in place appropriate measures to arrest the worrying situation.
In an interview with an online portal, the sex workers revealed that some Nigerians living in Kumasi have made it their business of bringing in very pretty sex workers from Nigeria to engage in the trade in the country.“Having realised the potential in the business, some Nigerians living in the city have decided to make it their business by bringing sex workers from their country to come and work here,” one of the disgruntled sex workers observed.
“When they bring them, they initially put them in hotels, before hiring rooms for them to practise their trade but we do not have agents or promoters so we are losing the market even in our own country,” another dissatisfied sex worker noted.
According to them, they would do everything within their means to ensure that the practice was stopped, because they believe that as Ghanaians, they have exclusive right to the trade.
“We cannot allow Nigeria to take over everything in the country including the sex trade,” the sex workers emphasized.
The assembly member for the area, Hon Albert Osei-Banahene, who has been appealing to the sex workers to remain calm, urged the government to take up the matter and ensure that it is resolved amicably.
He noted that it was important for the government to come in strongly because of the ages of the girls who are purported to have been brought into the city for sex trade.
—Eromosele Ebhomele/Agency Report
http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2010/09/03/sex-war-ghanaian-prostitutes-battle-nigerian-invaders/
