A CASE FOR DECRIMINALIZING PROSTITUTION
Joel Joshua
Legal and Contract Manager | Energy & Environmental Law | Opinions expressed are mine
In September 2016, British MP Dennis Parsons while speaking at a party event stated that school career officers in Britain should be allowed to suggest sex work as a career choice to students. His statement triggered a backlash by even fellow members of the Liberal Democrats. The LibDem leader Tim Farron described Parsons’ statement as “shocking”. While I do not intend to argue the validity or otherwise of Mr Parsons’ statements, what is clear is that his remarks and the attendant backlash revealed the unfading distaste for sex work and reignited the arguments for decriminalising prostitution.
Prostitution or “sex work” as it is euphemistically called is a socio-legal problem in Nigeria and by extension globally. In 1999, Sweden enacted a law on sex work that made it illegal to buy sexual services. The legislation decriminalised soliciting or sale of sexual services. The Swedish law on commercial sex work is indeed a very interesting piece.
After several attempts to fight prostitution failed (like it does everywhere), the government came up with a legislation that outlaws the act of offering anybody money in return for sexual services. The law is built on the belief that the commercial sex worker is usually an under-privileged member of society who has resorted to such an odious means of livelihood due to poverty or some underlying circumstance. The Swedes interpret that an attempt to buy somebody’s body is anti-democratic and vitiates the need for equality in society.
Prostitution is a crime in Nigeria under Nigeria’s bipartite criminal regime. Section 225A of the Criminal Code Act of Southern Nigeria and Section 183 of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria create and punish the offence of prostitution. In spite of this provisions, it has not deterred the activities of commercial sex workers in various cities and towns in Nigeria. A research conducted by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the United States of America indicates that there is an estimated 46,691 thousand sex workers in Lagos (Nigeria’s largest city) alone.
While efforts to rehabilitate prostitutes and provide them with more descent means of livelihood is yielding success, it is clear that the penal sanctions aimed at stemming the commercial sex trade have tanked. Maybe it would be a great idea to adopt the Swedish approach and decriminalise prostitution. Any ways, before you demonise this writer for been immoral, it will be important to state that due to Swedish reforms, it is reported that there are no red light districts in Sweden and since the enactment of the law, there has being no murder of a sex worker in the course of her work.
The ancient trade is a rather undignifying one and every necessary step must be taken to lift people who have taken to this base commerce and if criminalising the buyers of their “wares” is the way forward, then that may be a viable option for reform.
An earlier version of this article appeared on Perchstone & Graeys' Blog at https://greymile.wordpress.com/
Legal Counsel, Privacy & AI Governance
7 年I don't agree with some of your submissions, I think some of them are faulty. For example, prostitution is only illegal in the North, in the South, where the Criminal Code Act applies, the law is unsettled, at most, only a male person engaged in prostitution can be liable (see section 225A), a female cannot. What the law largely incriminates in the South or areas not regulated by the Penal Code are human trafficking, keeping of brothel, pimping, and procuring underage girls for prostitution purpose. The Criminal Code Act and what obtains in practise as regards prostitution in Nigeria is disastrous, and quite unclear, the unclarity is an upshot of an unclear law, and I think that rubs off on this article. We definitely need a review.