Trade-offs

Sometime in the 2000s, I interviewed a former Nigerian sex worker in Antwerp for a Dutch TV programme. Because of my novel, ‘On Black Sisters Street’, the makers of the documentary had sought me out to find someone they could feature. She looked to be in her 20s, was married to a Belgian man who used to be her client, and hadn’t worked as a prostitute for a long time.

She had come into Europe from Benin City as a teenager (via her father who lived in Germany and was married to some woman). He was also the one who sent her—let’s call her Hope—to live with his “friend” in Antwerp and be put to work. Sometimes Hope picked up clients at ‘T Keteltje, and what money she earned, she gave to the woman—let’s call her Madam—for safekeeping.

She’d only worked a few weeks or months, I forget when, when she wore an outfit the Madam didn’t recognise. The teenager had bought it with some extra money a repeat, generous client had given her. Something to ward off the winter cold. For not giving over her entire earnings, she needed her wings clipped. Madam stripped her, searched her privates to make sure she hadn’t hidden any money there, and sent her to bed in a cold room.

She quit and asked for all of her savings. The money, apparently, had been going to her father because she had been his investment. With no money but determined to leave such a wicked woman, Hope looked for help in the only way she could. Long story short, reader, she moved in with the generous client and at the time I interviewed her, she was married to him.

I asked her if she hated her father; she said no. She couldn’t hate a man who saved her from penury. She saved her hatred for Madam. When she left to use the bathroom, her husband—a much older man—told me that not only did she not hate her father, but that for years, he (her husband) had been driving her from Antwerp to Aachen to clean her father’s house in gratitude. And to pay obeisance in other ways to the man she believed saved her life. I still hear her tell me, “In Benin, I had nothing. Here, I have husband, house, car.”

I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a life where a husband, a house, and a car (or anything else, really) are reasonable trade-offs for your father pimping you out. Equally impossible to imagine is a father who sees his daughter as an investment in that way. A body to pimp out. I can’t remember if it was Hope or her husband who said something to the effect that men like her father were happy to have daughters because once they grew, they could be put to work.

Apparently, some men don’t even wait for the children to grow. If you are on social media, you are probably aware of the man in Auchi who created a “fan page” for his four-year-old whom he referred to as ‘sexy’: a paedophile’s haven.

He had videos of her twerking in a nightclub and sexualized photos of her, including one of her in just her underwear, flanked by Hennessey and other liquor used to promote her “birthday bash” and another one of her, back turned in a thong to show off her buttocks. Folks had unsuccessfully reported the page (with thousands of likes!), and had directly appealed to the father to delete it. He wouldn’t because “Everybody likes better things for life. This is our own.” Folks then mobilised social media to not only get the man to remove the page but to have him arrested.

I have seen no mention of the mother, but she’s equally culpable for allowing this to happen. Whether that culpability is from weakness or from being as evil as the man, she is incapable of raising a child. And every child deserves parents who want them and who will go through fire for them.

Thank you to everyone who stood on the matter and made sure that in this case, justice will be served. Thank you to Mirabel Centre, Harrison Gwamnishu, and others who have given us hope that this little girl will get the help she needs. She will not grow to be the woman who thinks having material things is a reasonable trade-off for her father being her pimp.