6 The Body as a Tool: Female Youth in Nigeria Negotiating the New Global Order* Mfon Umoren Ekpootu Introduction Economic liberalisation and the compression of the global market has led to the exclusion of a large number of people from basic needs and resources, thereby questioning notions by which rights and entitlements are allocated. The retreat of the state from social service delivery; the insistence on market transactional mechanisms to access social services; the food crisis which has resulted in the high cost of staple foods; and the current global economic crisis; have a disproportionate impact on certain members of society. The pressures, constraints and contradictions of globalisation and the burdens of adjustment to economic restructuring are localised among the poor in both rural and urban areas. At one end of the spectrum, the educated, high-income, socially and politically empowered groups stand to benefit from the changes brought about by trade liberalisation. At the other end, however, the dispossessed strata are inhibited in terms of securing such benefits and tend to be marginalised as the economic space becomes more aggressive and competitive. Data supplied by the World Bank reveals that, in 2001, over 1.1 billion people around the world were living in extreme poverty, with a projected reduction to 0.6 billion in 2015. Conversely, in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of poor people has been on the increase, from 227 million in 1990 to 313 million in 2001, with an expected rise to 340 million by 2015 (World Bank 2006). In recent times, the global recession has thrown individuals and states into economic distress and tightened the noose of economic exclusion around the necks of the poor. 172 Gender and Citizenship in the Global Age Encouraged to desire the goods available to their peers in the more affluent Western countries, most Nigerian youths are unable to actualise these wants. The promise of infinite opportunities as promoted by globalisation clashes with the reality of rising unemployment, widespread insecurity, food crisis, widening disparity of wealth and intense poverty. At the same time, new opportunities are provided by accelerated communication and information technology, enabling new vistas of relationship, which have expanded the scope of the use of the female body for various forms of trade celebrating consanguinity over the traditionally acceptable conjugality. It has enabled the procurement of sexual services through the internet and enhanced the practice of transnational and secondary prostitution (where the person has another occupation or activity besides sex work). The promotion of individualism and the negation of communal ties ensure that the individual becomes the sole agent in negotiating the opportunities and dangers of the capitalist-driven consumer society. Traversing these spaces, female youths in Nigeria are constrained to devise their own means of survival. With the loosening of societal constraints and the expanded field of permissible sexual expression, some young Nigerian females are increasing employing their bodies as tools to gain access to resources. This choice has been strengthened by the increased knowledge about reproduction and the use of contraceptives. The Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) ) shows that one-third of the female population aged 25-49 years have had sexual intercourse by the age of 15 years and the number increases to more than three-quarters of women by the age of 20 (NDHS 2003:88-9). Awareness and knowledge of family planning methods are also rising – about 8 in 10 women are knowledgeable about family planning methods, with pills and injections being widely used (NDHS 2003:62-3). Sexual realities of women and girls in Nigeria challenge nationalist understanding and cultural practice. This chapter explores the engagement of Nigerian female youths in the sex industry as a remedy to deprivation and marginalisation. It questions how globalisation, global consumerism and the neo-liberal mantra of individualism shape the activities of young female Nigerians in their negotiation of the economic space through the use of the body as a tool. It also explores the impact of this negotiation of sexuality and agency on female citizenship and discusses whether the celebration of the self and exercise of agency has translated into political agency and the claiming of space in the public sphere. The chapter is divided into five sections, beginning with a background study of the status Ekpootu: The Body as a Tool – Female Youth in Nigeria 173 of women in Nigeria. Women in Nigeria continue to be discriminated against and they lack full citizenship rights. This section will highlight the role of women in the Nigerian society, their entitlements and their rights. Section two gives a theoretical perspective that draws from feminist readings of the body, sex work and citizenship. Subsequent sections will discuss prostitution and situate it in a historical and socio-cultural context for a more nuanced understanding. The dynamics underlying sex work and the divergent of markets in female sexual labour and what impact these have on women’s claim to citizenship will also be examined. Background The pervasion of poverty and the widening disparities in income as the country is polarised into those integrated into the globalisation process and the marginalised, remain a major challenge to Nigeria. A long history of political and democratic deficits – over 25 years of military dictatorship, macroeconomic instability, and pandemic corruption – has deepened poverty in Nigeria. The Nigerian Human Development Report of 2007/2008 shows an increase in income poverty. The number of Nigerians living below the poverty level of US$1 per day has risen from 70 percent in 2003 to 70.8 percent and for those living below US$2 per day from 91.5 per cent to 92.4 per cent (UNICEF 2005; NHDR 2007/8). Despite government attempts to improve educational services with its Universal Basic Education Scheme (UBE), the benefits are felt more at the primary level. The primary school gross enrolment ratio from 2000-2006 was 111 for males and 95 for females. However, there was a sharp decrease at secondary school level within the same period with a gross enrolment figure of 37 for males and 31 for females (UNICEF 2007). High dropout rates and, low quality of education haves meant that despite a high literacy rate among youths – 87 per cent for males and 81 percent for females – recorded from 2000-2006 (UNICEF 2007), the majority of them lack basic skills and are incapable of making the transition from school to work. This dysfunctional education has kept the youths largely marginalised and incapable of accessing the opportunities in a technology-driven, globally integrated economy. Literature on globalisation indicates its asymmetric impact on men and women and the intensification of the latter’s marginalisation fuelled by gendered social, economic and political structures (Guuttal 2000; Hogan 2001; Lim 2002; Ongile 2004; Phalane 2004). The differentials in impact on both sexes are premised on the fact that women are situated differently 174 Gender and Citizenship in the Global Age from men in the capitalist reproductive process. In its 2007 Annual Report, the United Nations Development Programme illustrates the growing global marginalisation of women despite the increase in the number of women in the workforce. According to the Report, women constitute 60 per cent of the world’s 1 billion poorest people (www.undp.org). Women generally have a lower level of educational attainment and this affects the types of employment open to them. One cannot discuss the impact of trade liberalisation on women without considering the whole gamut of gender stereotyping, articulated by patriarchy, which carries with it certain socio- cultural expectations. Theoretical Framework The chapter employs the feminist analysis in the reading of the female body which foregrounds it within the larger context of unequal power relations (Brook 1996; Davies 1997; Conboy et al. 1997). A woman’s reproductive capacity intertwines her closely to the body which, in line with body-mind dualism, is constructed as the ‘other’ of the mind. The latter, allied with reason, stands apart from the body, which, according to Susan Bordo is, apart from the true self…undermining the best efforts of the self. That which is not-body is the highest, the best, the noblest, the closest to God; that which is body is the albatross, the heavy drag on self-realisation (Bordo 2003). This construction of gender which positions a woman as inferior to the mind is a historical construct that has been given credence by medical discourse over the years (Sanchez-Grant 2008) and this has catapulted the body to the forefront of feminist debate as a site of male oppression. Jackson and Scott (cited in Sanchez-Grant 2008) argue that bodies acquire meaning in a socio- cultural context, in interacting with others. Control of the body, therefore, is instrumental to female liberation. The assertion that, ‘the personal is political’, is a rebuttal of the separation of the public sphere from the domestic. The female body as a social construct derives from a normative discourse that excludes women and demands a re-reading with the intent to dismantle and re-assemble by women themselves. In recent decades, the female body has become a site for contestation as the gains achieved by women’s movements around the world become more apparent. With shifting gender roles and new sexual freedoms, a lot of women are making efforts to construct a life imbued with their own meaning. One important aspect is controlling their sexuality. Sexuality is acknowledged Ekpootu: The Body as a Tool – Female Youth in Nigeria 175 as an integral part of human experience and sexual rights as deriving from fundamental and universal human rights. At its 14th World Congress of Sexology held in Hong Kong in 1999, the World Association of Sexual Health (WAS), adopted several sexual rights including: the right to sexual freedom; the right to sexual autonomy; the right to sexual privacy; the right to sexual pleasure; and the right to emotional sexual expression (WAS 1999).