Abstract
Beginning in the late 1930s, there was a growing concern about the increase in the number of “girl hawkers” on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. Although hawking of wares was a traditional occupation for boys and girls, by the late 1930s, it was clearly linked to prostitution. Girls as young as nine years of age were being lured into prostitution. This chapter explores the efforts of the colonial government in association with local women’s groups to prevent girls from working as prostitutes. These efforts included the creation of a social welfare system, the establishment of juvenile courts, and provisions for the training of girls as domestic servants.
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- 1.
National Archives, Ibadan (NAI)/ComCol I/2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 84.
- 2.
A. I. Asiwaju, ‘The Western Provinces under Colonial Rule’ in O. Ikime (ed.), Groundwork of Nigerian History (Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980), 429.
- 3.
Monsuru O. Muritala, ‘Urban Livelihood in Lagos, 1861–1960’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Ibadan, 2014), 138.
- 4.
NAI/ComCol I 2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 86. See also Saheed Aderinto, When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 93–112.
- 5.
Muritala, ‘Urban Livelihood in Lagos, 1861–1960’, 138.
- 6.
Abosede A. George, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development in Colonial Lagos (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014), 91–93.
- 7.
Ayodeji Olukoju, ‘Population Pressure, Housing and Sanitation in West Africa’s Premier Port-City: Lagos 1900–1939’, The Great Circle, 15, no. 2 (1993), 92. Olukoju suggested that the number of women in Lagos may have been underrecorded due to the sort of work that many women undertook: ‘street hawking and retail trading in the markets (both of which engaged women within and outside the city and hampered enumeration) and prostitution (the practitioners of which would have declined a head count …)’.
- 8.
George, Making Modern Girls, 91–93.
- 9.
Laurent Fourchard, ‘Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria, 1920–60’, Journal of African History, 47 (2006), 115.
- 10.
Toyin Falola, ‘Trade and Market in Pre-Colonial Economy’ in G. O. Ogunremi et al. (eds), An Economic History of West Africa (Lagos: First Academic Publishers, 2005), 65.
- 11.
NAI/ComCol I/2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 79–80.
- 12.
Olatunde B, Lawuyi, ‘Education, Mobility, and Gender within the Nigerian Informal Economy: The Domestic Service Example’, Sociologus: A Journal for Empirical Ethno-Sociology and Ethno-Psychology, new series, 40, no. 1 (1990), 41.
- 13.
NAI/ComCol I/248/107, ‘Memorandum of Social Problems as it affects Women and Girls in the township of Lagos.’, 26.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
NAI/ComCol I/2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–6’, 84.
- 16.
Ibid., 83.
- 17.
Ibid., 86.
- 18.
Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas (Lagos: CSS Bookshops, 1921), 115.
- 19.
‘Child Prostitution in Lagos’, 87.
- 20.
Sogidi, ‘Save the Future Mothers,’ 21 September 1935; Kabiboy, ‘Girl Hawkers’ Morals,’ The Comet, 26 October 1935 as cited in Aderinto, When Sex Threatened the State, 197.
- 21.
Editorial Note: ‘Street Indecencies’, Lagos Daily News, 27 May 1932.
- 22.
Aderinto, When Sex Threatened the State, 79.
- 23.
Editorial Note: ‘These Hard Times’, Lagos Daily News, 1 July 1932.
- 24.
NAI/OndoProf 1/3, ‘Social Welfare in the Colony and Protectorate’, 119.
- 25.
NAI/ComCol I/2844. ‘Regulations to Prevent Children Trading in the Streets’ in ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 1.
- 26.
Ibid., 98.
- 27.
‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 79; Olayemi C. Blaize, ‘Moral Dangers in the Community’, correspondence in Daily Times, 24 November 1944.
- 28.
NAI/ComCol I/248/107, Minutes of the Women’s Welfare Council in ‘Memorandum of Social Problems as it affects Women and Girls in the township of Lagos’, 39–41.
- 29.
NAI/ComCol I/2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 46.
- 30.
NAI/OndoProf 1/3, ‘Social Welfare in the Colony and Protectorate’, 6 and 66.
- 31.
George, Making Modern Girls, 136.
- 32.
NAI/OndoProf 1/3, ‘Social Welfare in the Colony and Protectorate’, 163.
- 33.
Ibid., 145.
- 34.
NAI/ComCol I/2786. ‘Statement re-Children and Young Persons Ordinance’ in ‘Children and Young Persons Bill of 1943’. See also Daily Times July 3, 1946.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
NAI/ComCol I/2786, ‘Children and Young Persons Bill of 1943’, 189.
- 37.
Ibid. See also Daily Times, 3 July 1946.
- 38.
These streets were the Marina, Igbosere Road, Broad Street, Balogun Street, Victoria Street, Ereko Street, Racecourse Road, Tinubu Square, Moloney Street, Idumagbo Avenue, Ikoyi Road, Moloney Bridge Street, Force Road, Iddo Road, Denton Causeway, and all streets in Ikoyi. See NAI/ComCol I/2786, ‘Children and Young Persons Bill of 1943’, 189.
- 39.
Ibid., 44.
- 40.
Ibid. See also Daily Times, 3 July 1946.
- 41.
NAI/ComCol I 2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’, 87.
- 42.
NAI/OndoProf 1/3, ‘Social Welfare in the Colony and Protectorate’, 128.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
National Archives, Ibadan
NAI/ComCol I/248/107, ‘Memorandum of Social Problems as it affects Women and Girls in the township of Lagos.’
NAI/ComCol I/2786, ‘Children and Young Persons Bill of 1943’
NAI/ComCol I/2844, ‘Child Prostitution in Lagos, 1942–46’
NAI/OndoProf 1/3, ‘Social Welfare in the Colony and Protectorate’
Printed Contemporary Sources
Daily Times (Lagos)
Lagos Daily News
Secondary Sources
Aderinto, Saheed, When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2015)
Asiwaju, A. I., ‘The Western Provinces under Colonial Rule’ in O. Ikime (ed.), Groundwork of Nigerian History (Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980), 429–445
Falola, Toyin, ‘Trade and Market in Pre-Colonial Economy’ in G. O. Oguremi et al (eds), An Economic History of West Africa (Lagos: First Academic Publishers, 2005), 61–73
Fourchard, L., ‘Lagos and the Invention of Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria, 1920–60’, Journal of African History, 47 (2006), 115–137
George, Abosede A., Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development in Colonial Lagos (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014)
Johnson, S., The History of the Yorubas (Lagos: CSS Bookshops, 1921), 115.
Lawuvi, Olatunde. B., ‘Education, Mobility, and Gender within the Nigerian Informal Economy: The Domestic Service Example’, Sociologus: A Journal for Empirical Ethno-Sociology and Ethno-Psychology, new series, 40, no. 1 (1990), 39–53
Muritala, Monsuru O., ‘Urban Livelihood in Lagos, 1861–1960’ (unpublished, PhD thesis, University of Ibadan, 2014)
Olukoju, Ayodeji, ‘Population Pressure, Housing and Sanitation in West Africa’s Premier Port-City: Lagos 1900–1939’, The Great Circle, 15, no. 2 (1993), 91–106
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Adesina, O.A. (2018). The ‘Girl-Hawking War’ in Colonial Lagos. In: O'Dowd, M., Purvis, J. (eds) A History of the Girl. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69278-4_12
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