Love, a 35-year-old mother of an eight-month-old baby, has not known real love. She’s a s3x worker in slums in Lekki, a high-brow area of Lagos State.
She spoke with SATURDAY PUNCH, saying she started prostitution while pregnant with the child.
Love, who was married for 15 years, said she did not have a child with her ex-husband, which led to constant abuse and humiliation.
It was when she was thrown out by her husband that she discovered that she was pregnant.
According to her, she vowed not to return to the marriage for fear of losing the pregnancy.
“I did not want my husband to kill me and my child with beating. It took 15 years for me to summon the courage to leave an abusive marriage and I swore to do whatever it would take to survive.
“I entered Lagos with my pregnancy and frustration after I left Port Harcourt, where I lived. I had a big hair dressing salon at Choba that was doing fine. I had three girls in my salon, who were calling me madam; but my husband took everything away, saying he made me.
“I left with nothing and had to start from scratch. I’m 35 years now and I cannot go back to my parents, who are poor and in the village. I had no other choice than to come to this place, so I could have money to eat,” she added.
Love said after she saved up some money, she rented an apartment at Sango-Ota, Ogun State.
She noted that she also started selling food by the roadside, so she could have enough money for herself and her unborn child.
However, because she underwent a caesarian section, the operation took up all her savings of about N300,000.
“Even after I gave birth, I tried to go back to the food business with the little I had, but the market was no longer moving; I was no longer selling. It’s a shameful thing for me to take that baby back to the village with my parents; I had to do this to survive and take care of my child.
“I moved back to Kuramo two months ago with my baby, who is about eight months old. I don’t come out every day because my baby is still small, but this is what is paying my bills presently.
“I didn’t go to school but I learnt hairdressing and I’m also interested in selling foodstuffs. I just need to gather enough money to start the food business because if I decide to go for a salon, the capital to rent a shop and buy equipment will be too much for me,” she added.
Asked if her husband was not concerned about the child, Love claimed that he dared her to care for the baby alone.
“Or I should return if I’m ready, but I can’t go back. I have endured too much from him. Aside from the beating, he would bring women to the house and send me out of the room to go and sleep in the sitting room. He would insult me and tell me ‘it is women not men that sleep in the room’. He would say he married a fellow man because I had no children. I can’t go back to that trauma,” she stated while fighting back tears.
SATURDAY PUNCH gathered that women in the shanty were paid N1,000 for a round of sex.
They also remit N500 daily to their Chief Security Officer, who provided them with security cover. This is in addition to the N200 they must pay weekly to the CSO as ‘percentage’.
Speaking with our correspondent, the CSO, who identified himself only as Osama, said the women in Kuramo were “those who have lost hope in life, hardened their hearts and ready to do anything to survive.”
Our correspondent observed that the shanty hosted mostly elderly women, with the youngest sex worker being a 29-year-old lady.
