‘What Abuja’s ex-prostitutes have been up to’

This feat was recorded in the area of skills acquisition that was promise by the FCTA authority which adopted a stick and carrot approach to the policy of getting the call girls off the streets of Abuja.   Though some of the call girls have remained deviant against the rehabilitation programme, a good number of […]

This feat was recorded in the area of skills acquisition that was promise by the FCTA authority which adopted a stick and carrot approach to the policy of getting the call girls off the streets of Abuja.

 

Though some of the call girls have remained deviant against the rehabilitation programme, a good number of them accepted the offer and enrolled into the program at the FCTA rehabilitation center, Sabon Lugbe, along Airport road in Abuja.

At the moment, the center is set to graduate about 60 of the ex-prostitutes who have learnt various trades, ranging from tailoring, hairdressing amongst others.

Mrs. Uloma Udeh, the supervisor of the women rehabilitation center, told Weekly Trust that the centre is actually for rehabilitation of sex workers and destitutes who sleep on the street at night.

“What we do is that we collaborate with the environmental workers. The environmental officers go to arrest them and after they are charged to court, they bring them here for rehabilitation”.

“We start by interviewing them to ascertain their areas of interest. Some of them will decide to go for fashion design, computer training, interior decoration, bead making and hair dressing. From there, we enroll them based on choices they make”.

The principal said the ladies would be trained before they are set for graduation.

‘Their hostels are well equipped with facilities that will make them feel at home here so that they will not think of going back to their former life styles.

The idea is that after training here, the government will help them with money to settle down and start up what they have learnt. The arrangement is like a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement. I.e. when they set up a fashion designing shop for you, we can transfer some apprentice to your center for training as well.’

The center hosts about 60 apprentices at the moment with more expected as the raid for commercial sex workers intensifies within the FCT. Moreover, the authority claimed that there are adequate facilities to accommodate as many as are willing to join the others.

On how they recruit their inmates into the center, she explained that there is a rule in the court that if they are caught more than once, they will have to be sent to prison. But it is not the court’s wish to send them to jail, so the court brings them here instead for rehabilitation and after staying for at least two or three days, they naturally begin to blend with the rest of the girls and make new friends and learn to adapt to the new environment.

The care taker of the center said one of her best strategies to create a smooth relationship with the girls is by listening to their plight and sympathizing with them.

“I’m a mother; I see them as my daughters and younger sisters as well. At first it wasn’t easy but now, within two to three days I get what their problem is by giving them the adequate audience they need so that they can relate with me well”.

“Sometimes, they tell me their personal problems like what rally led them to prostitution and so on, so after telling us such stories like they are responsible for their parents’ up keeps in the village, we give them money to send to them”.

Besides the skills acquisition training, there are other lessons learnt which often pose serious challenges because most of the girls are illiterates.

“Sometimes the problem is that most of them don’t even know how to read and write, when they are brought here, we give them forms to fill, but they don’t even know what to write. They often tell you that they did not go to school so they don’t know how to read and write”.

Favour Okoye, one of the apprentices who hail from Anambra said she learnt hair dressing in the center and she enjoys her stay. “I feel very good; they treat us well here, I’m even enjoying myself than when I was in the street of Abuja”.

Loveth from Kaduna State who claim to have a secondary school education said her life is better than before. “I’m learning hair dressing and computer all together. I intend to open a shop and then go back to school to study a part- time course at the University of Abuja because I really like to study Public Administration”.