@ Bandele
A man with a shallow brain like you will go no where! Yeah, blame everything bad on the white and see how your inferiority complex has eaten your brain up.

How were they doing it in Nigeria/Africa then if they were not allowed to stand on the road or operate brothels?. Did they also have pimps then?

there are different ways of prostituting yourself. the roadside one I think will come from urbanization like someone already mentioned. If you live in a big city where nobody knows you and there is no family or friends to disgrace you, you can stand on the road side all you want!! the city is anonymous n u can be whatever without any social restrictions.
imagine doing that in the open in a village where everybody knows everybody. lol better yet, there are no cars on the roadside or are there even major roads at all in the village or traffic for that matter?

earTHMama:

You carefully removed Ekiti and Igbo from your list. Don't they have love-peddlers during that time?. As an AA, did they have AA love-peddlers during slavery?

There was no prostitution in Igbo culture. We don't have a name for it. Men were allowed to marry as many wives as possible and were all married mostly as virgins. The widowed becomes the wife of the late man's brother and the cycle continues.

006:

There was no prostitution in Igbo culture. We don't have a name for it. Men were allowed to marry as many wives as possible and were all married mostly as virgins. The widowed becomes the wife of the late man's brother and the cycle continues.

Liar liar apata afaya . Prostitution was in every culture. May be Igbos were more discreet about theirs.

aloy-emeka:

Liar liar apata afaya . Prostitution was in every culture. May be Igbos were more discreet about theirs.

English call them Harlots
Yoruba call them Ashawo
Igbo call them ---

Maybe you should help me with a name.

006:

English call them Harlots
Yoruba call them Ashawo
Igbo call them ---

Maybe you should help me with a name.   

it's probably because your igbo history/ language knowledge is not strong enough 
i mean mine isn't either

to be honest, i went and searched the yoruba dictionary from the early 1900s just for this topic and didn't find the word ashewo in it. it's most likely a newer word. prostitution was listed as[i] agbere[/i].  a lot of young yoruba ppl don't know that. mostly the elder ones


so ask your dad or mom what the word for prostitu.te is in igbo and they might know 

this is just a probability. you might be right.

oyinda.:

it's probably because your igbo history/ language knowledge is not strong enough 
i mean mine isn't either

to be honest, i went and searched the yoruba dictionary from the early 1900s just for this topic and didn't find the word ashewo in it. it's most likely a newer word. prostitution was listed as[i] agbere[/i].  a lot of young yoruba ppl don't know that. mostly the elder ones


so ask your dad or mom what the word for prostitu.te is in igbo and they might know 

this is just a probability. you might be right.

Prostitution then implies stationing oneself just for the public and engaging in sexual intercourse for money. Prostitution, which was unheard of in the traditional Igbo society, has become a trend for moneymaking. The reasons are not farfetched: with the advent of urbanization and city life, our women became more exposed than ever. In the past, a woman relied on her husband (and the unmarried girl on her brothers) for her economic sustenance. In the trends of events today, everyone, man or woman alike, wants and fights for his/her economic independence. …………


The menance of prostitution was one of the reasons why the Igbo women took to riots in Aba (1929). The grace of womanhood was being debased on account of the attitude young girls had developed toward intimacy, which was an offshoot of European impact. It remains undisputable, and even a white author acknowledged the fact that prostitution as profession was totally nonexistent in Igboland before its contact with Western culture. The so-called civilization led to the collapse of the existing morality in the traditional lives of the Igbo. Sexual morality and the taboos attached to them were let loose; and prostitution was becoming a very lucrative profession at the expense of our traditional values.

Excerpt from Achievement as value in the Igbo/African identity: the ethics By Vernantius Emeka Ndukaihe


Note: Igbos were village people whereas Yorubas were city people. A lot of taboos guided Igbo society because we had no kings.

well that makes sense if like you say igbo ppl have always had a village type organization. read my previous post on this topic:

oyinda.:

there are different ways of prostituting yourself. the roadside one I think will come from urbanization like someone already mentioned. If you live in a big city where nobody knows you and there is no family or friends to disgrace you, you can stand on the road side all you want!! the city is anonymous n u can be whatever without any social restrictions.
imagine doing that in the open in a village where everybody knows everybody. lol better yet, there are no cars on the roadside or are there even major roads at all in the village or traffic for that matter? 

so in essence, the igbos shouldn't be blaming prostitution on the western world. unless they want to start living again as villagers 
the women just happen to take advantage of a surrounding that is favorable for prostitution. they didn't watch how to love-peddler from western TV.

if you have a word for adultery or fornication, some adulterers are love-peddlers. just not commercial ones. they get money or material benefits from the guy they sleep with. 
in the yoruba dictionary, the word for prostitution and adultery/fornication were the same. ashewo came later from rapid urbanization and commercial prostitution i guess so it probably came to be defined separately from adultery.

^^^ Prostitution has come to stay in Igboland and there's very little we could do about it.
Adultery is a real taboo in Igboland. Like Olaudah Equiano wrote in 1700’s, “adultery was sometimes punished with death”

A lil' info.

In Igbo, the more commonly used word for love-peddler is “akwunakwuna” abbreviated to akwuna. Nowadays, ashawo is more commonly used (Lagos effect I guess).
Some might mistake “akwuna” as an Igbo word for love-peddler but it is not Igbo. The word is actually from Ogoja, Cross River State and more accurately written as “akunakuna” and it’s a name of a town in Ogoja area.

Origin:
During the colonial times, the British recruited Akunakuna women (both married and unmarried) as cooks for the West African Frontier Force and later for the Expeditionary Force into Igboland. These women later started prostituting themselves with the soldiers and other men willing to pay for their services. That’s how Igbos started calling those love-peddlers akwunakwuna and it becomes a word in Igbo language as akwuna.

yea and it makes perfect sense. lol when women are free to work outside the home and do whatever they want, they will.
unless you guys want to emulate Niger & other restrictive countries with shari'a law, veils and all that. then prostitution will cease to exist

to me prostitution is to females as armed robbery and theft is to males. these are urban issues that will generally persist without a strong police force.