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Sex Workers In Ghana Protest Against Nigerian Invasion

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sex workers in ghana protest against younger nigerian girls
Ghanaian girls who offer sex for money at Adum, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti region, have expressed anger over some Nigerians importing younger and prettier girls who are gradually taking over the sex business.

If not for the intervention of the assembly member for the area, Albert Osei-Banahene, the enraged sex workers would have hit the streets in their nakedness and marched from one office building to another, just to get the authorities to come to their aide.

“It is not that they are better than us in bed but as you know, most men prefer younger girls and these Nigerian girls are younger. Some are still in their teens and their agents protect them but we do not have agents who make things easier for us so the conditions of work are not fair.

“We would start attacking any underage ashawo from Nigeria because they are spoiling the market,” one of them noted. Interestingly, though both groups are prostituting, the Ghanaian girls say they are commercial sex workers while the Nigerians are ‘ashawos.’

According to the Ghanaian sex workers, the arrival of sexier girls from Nigeria is making business very competitive and compelling them to lower their rates or lose customers. Not pleased about the development, the disillusioned sex workers have declared their preparedness to hit the streets, should authorities fail to respond to their call and put in place appropriate measures to arrest the worrying situation.

In an interview with NEWS-ONE, the stationed sex workers revealed that some Nigerians living in Kumasi have made it their business of bringing in very pretty sex workers from the oil-rich country to practice their trade in the Ghana.

“Having realized the potential in the business, some Nigerians living in the city have decided to make it their business by bringing sex workers from their country to come and work here,” one of the disgruntled sex workers observed.

“When they bring them, they initially put them in hotels, before hiring rooms for them to practice their trade but we do not have agents or promoters so we are losing the market even in our own country,” another dissatisfied sex worker noted.

According to them, they would do everything within their means to ensure that the practice was stopped, because they believe that as Ghanaians, they have exclusive right to the trade. “We cannot allow

Nigeria to take over everything in the country including the sex trade,” the sex workers emphasized.

The assembly member for the area, Hon Albert Osei-Banahene, who has being appealing to the sex workers to remain calm, appealed to the government to take up the matter and ensure that it is resolved amicably. He noted that it was important for the government to come in strongly because of the ages of the girls who are purported to have been sent into the city for sex trade.

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G20 Leaders Must Renew Their Commitment to Global Development

By Kofi Annan
Ahead of today’s G20 Summit in South Korea, two issues stand out for those of us who take an interest in international development.
First, the concepts of fairness, balance, and the common good have experienced a welcome renaissance as world leaders have had to remind each other of these universal principles to avoid a potentially devastating escalation of their disagreements on currency values and trade imbalances.
Second, while it remains to be seen to what extent it will help to bring countries’ contending economic strategies into line, this rediscovery of basic values comes just as the G20 is beginning to include international development issues in its deliberations. Naturally, it is my profound hope that the principles of fairness, balance and the common good which have become so popular with G20 leaders lately will also inform these discussions — and not only those on issues like undervalued currencies, lopsided trade statistics or skewed consumption patterns however important they may be.
Unfortunately, the signs are decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the global repercussions of the financial and economic crises have clearly nourished an understanding of the true extent and consequences of our interdependence. At least for a moment, there seems to have been a consensus that a world that restricts the benefits of globalization to a few at the expense of many is neither fair nor stable; that one cannot address trade imbalances without addressing the development imbalances that underlie them; and that it is in everyone’s interest to see the developing world graduate out of instability and economic dependence as soon as possible.
However, all these realizations have not yet led to the fundamentally different policies that are so urgently needed. In fact, in many G20 countries the crises, and particularly their effects on the world’s poor, appear already all but forgotten and business and politics have resumed with little regard to the damage caused, the trust destroyed, and the lessons learned. Several G20 members have even used the economic upheavals as an excuse to tighten protectionist policies in direct contrast to their repeated pledges to keep markets open. As so often, developing countries have been among the primary victims.
This is deeply unfortunate as, in my view, the G20 states, both individually and collectively, are the natural drivers of development. They are, by definition, the countries with the capacity, resources, influence and, thus, the moral obligation and responsibility to help those less fortunate.
Many of them have only recently graduated into major economies and their developmental experiences are still fresh. These countries understand that the key to development is not charity but equitable, job creating, and ideally green economic growth fueled by investment in the productive sectors, agriculture, infrastructure, renewable energy, trade, knowledge and technical skills. They also appreciate that the most important sources of development finance must be domestic revenues and private sector investment and that aid’s main value other than in meeting urgent humanitarian needs, is to increase capacities, reduce dependence upon external support, and to lubricate and leverage investment in the sources of growth and good governance.
It is thus encouraging that the development agenda proposed by the South Korean presidency speaks as much to these realities as to a new sense of partnership and genuine mutual accountability. The document, as far as it is known, covers all the right points, including the unblocking of existing initiatives and the need to complement the efforts of other actors such as the G8, the G77 and, of course, the United Nations. If the leaders assembled in Seoul decide to take it on with the same universal values in mind that they now invoke in the areas of trade and exchange rates, we will have gained much.
Having said all this, the implementation of the valuable ideas entailed in the Korean proposal should not be made dependent on the G20 taking them on as a group. While a renewed commitment to development by the world’s most powerful group would certainly be a major step in the right direction and send an important political signal to developing countries, it is of course not enough on its own to overcome the immense challenges that these countries face. Nor does it necessarily invalidate some of the concerns raised regarding the G20’s legitimacy and capacity.
What really counts is that each member of the group internalizes the concepts of fairness, balance, and the common good and adapts its behaviour accordingly. If the G20 setup can help them do so by playing to its unquestionable strengths of composition, reach and sheer economic prowess, this will be all the better and should not only be welcomed, but encouraged.
Kofi Annan is Former UN Secretary General & Chair of the Africa Progress Panel.
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Laziness will send us to an early grave

Dr Richard Weiler & Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis, Sports and Exercise experts
Our lives are full energy-saving devices, from ready meals to remote controls, all designed to make our lives easier.
But in this week’s Scrubbing Up London-based sports-medicine experts Dr Richard Weiler from the Homerton Hospital and Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis from University College London argue they also make us lazier and create risks to our health.
A sedentary lifestyle is undeniably an environmental disease in its own right – with countless unpleasant signs and symptoms, which all lead to an early grave.
Humans are designed to move, not stay still. Millions of years hunting, farming and intense manual labour have shaped our bodies to their current form.
But suddenly (literally suddenly in evolutionary terms) we have found ourselves in an era when moving has become redundant.
Science and technology have undoubtedly made our lives easier
 
Time, energy and money-saving advances have mechanized our way of life and reduced the amount of time we spend moving
 
Opportunities to sit are virtually everywhere: at work, school, during transportation and at home. Quick fixes for health, appearance and emotional state are abundant and usually somebody else’s responsibility.
Since most people blame lack of time as their main excuse for not being active, it is ironic that on average we waste over three hours watching television per day.
We have not been educated that it doesn’t cost anything to be more active in everyday life. For example use the car less, walk more, walk up the escalators and use the stairs instead of the lift.
Inactivity risks
The values of active ancient civilisations – such as the Greeks, for whom physical and mental health were top priorities – are long forgotten.
 
In essence, our environment has made it easy for us to live inherently lazy, slothful and sedentary lives.
With advances in measuring physical activity levels, we have discovered, to our horror, that 95% of the UK population are not even doing the minimum recommended amounts of physical activity to confer even basic health benefits (30 minutes’ moderate to vigorous physical activity on at least five days a week – or the equivalent).
Whether slim or fat, a person leading a sedentary lifestyle has similar chances of dying young to a smoker.
Statistically, every week spent inactive is roughly equivalent to smoking a packet of cigarettes.
Conversely, becoming physically active at any age can reverse the health risks of sedentary living, where the least active stand to gain the most by moving more.
However, unlike smoking, sedentary lifestyles lead to more than 40 medically recognised chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, mental illness, dementia, some cancers. It also leads to reduced quality of life and, perhaps most importantly, unhappiness.
Inactivity in children leads to obesity and reduced academic performance across all socio-economic classes.
And inactivity among working adults leads to increased time off work and decreased productivity.
In the elderly, quality of life and independence are severely reduced, whilst health care costs are dramatically increased. Few areas of life escape unpleasant consequences. This burden on individual and society is enormous.
“Nanny-state!” is cried from the rooftops when attempts are made to inform people about their unhealthy behaviours, yet we allow greedy corporate advertising to influence our way of life and increase our consumption.
Market forces, mainly driven by the pharmaceutical industry, have turned each of the signs and symptoms of sedentary living into seemingly acceptable recognised “medical” diseases.
It makes no sense to throw billions of pounds at firefighting the symptoms whilst ignoring the main underlying cause.
In general, we have embraced our sedentary environment and, as such, perhaps ought not consider ourselves victims of these (mostly) self-inflicted chronic diseases. But, how much longer can we afford to remain stubbornly resistant to change and solutions?
Sedentary living is the most prevalent disease, biggest silent killer and greatest health threat facing developed countries.
Awareness, understanding and recognition of this major problem will help us all contemplate behaviour and environmental change with unusually welcome green outcomes. The solution is obvious: move!
(BBC News)
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Female circumcision and Ugandan politics

(A comprehensive discussion of female genital mutilation is available here)
Although Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM) has been condemned by international bodies as an abuse of human rights, a vast majority of people from the Sebei tribe in Uganda still practice the dangerous tradition.
Despite the practice having been banned outright in the eastern African country since last year, some 200 young girls from the Sebei tribe have “willingly” registered to be circumcised in December this year.
The practice, which is common among people from the Sebei tribe of Bukwo and Kapchora districts at the foot of mountain Elgon, 400 kms east of Kampala, is categorized by World Health Organization as Female Genital Mutilation due to the damage it causes to circumcised women’s sexuality. It also leads to various complications.
After confirming that women in Sabiny tribe are among the most affected by the practice, anti Female genital mutilation advocate, Dr Betty Nalongo, explained how the bloody practice affects women: “FGM, refers to the removal of the external female genitalia. It is not only painful but also makes the victim never to enjoy sex after the mutilation.”
Notwithstanding its adverse effects, including childbirth related complications, a Sabiny man, Rogers Kyesang says that people from his tribe want their “girls and women to be circumcised because circumcised women are less interested in sex and therefore can not have extra-marital relationships while in marriage.”
But Cecilia Chemutai, 30, a woman who underwent the painful experience 10 years ago says: “I regret why I accepted to be circumcised. I feel much pain during sexual intercourse with my husband… and childbirth is very difficult”. She does not understand why girls voluntarily go for the exercise.
One of the girls who has decided to get circumcised in December this year, Gladys Ketrai, 19, says she wants “to be circumcised” in order for her to “fit well among the already circumcised women” of her “tribe.” “It is an old tradition which all women in the past underwent. Why should I avoid the exercise when my mother and grandmother went through it?” she argues.
Meanwhile, a government official in Sebei, Thomas Sakkwa has hinted that the decision from the girls are anything but voluntary. “Some of the young girls are teased into being circumcised… by elderly women. Whenever they they come across uncircumcised girls, they tease them that they are not fit to be within their company because they are not yet circumcised.”
But with all the government official’s concern, no politician has dared to remind the people of Sebei of the illegality of the practice due to the pending elections. They fear that any attack on the practice could cost them vital votes due to the fact that many local people there revere circumcision. A law against Female Genital Mutilation has been in place in Uganda for several months.
Uganda is to hold presidential and general elections in Febuary, 2011, and many people hope that the law against circumcision will be resurrected to save girls and young women from the blade after the elections.
(Afrik-News)
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‘God, let crude oil dry up’

 The Chief Executive and Managing Director of Koinonia Ventures Limited, Mr. Femi Boyede, who is also a World Bank Consultant, has asked God to allow Nigerian oil wells to dry up.
Boyede, an initiator of the International Trade Centre (ITC), in Nigeria and convener of the first ever Nigerian Non-Oil Exports Conference, Exhibition and Awards (NNECEA 2010), holding in Abuja this week, told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that, his prayer was informed by the near total neglect of other sectors of the economy, especially the real sector, including agriculture, which, in the past, was the mainstay of the nation’s economy, but which has been neglected in preference for crude oil.
He wonder why the groundnut pyramids in the North; the red oil in the East; and the cocoa in the West, which used to be the country’s sources of foreign exchange earner, were no more.
Boyede stressed: “Actually, this year, part of my prayer points is that God should take away oil from Nigeria. Let the crude oil dry up or let something happen that Nigeria won’t have oil again; it’s still my prayer point.
“And the reason is quite simple. When I was born, I grew up knowing Nigeria to be a flourishing nation that had no oil. I grew up here in the North; so, I knew all about the groundnut pyramids. I grew up in Niger State. So, I knew all about mangoes and sheanuts and how economically viable they were and the kind of economic activities they generated.
“But, all of a sudden, everything went away and our brain went dead, because we suddenly found oil, and you find out that even the people in the oil industry, they have a platform on an annual basis, the Nigerian Oil and Gas. It happened in Abuja in February, a forum where everything that happened is reviewed. That is the reason why I went to Nigerian Exports Promotion Council with a proposal of this concept”.
According to him, the conference tagged: “Non-Oil Exports As Driver of Nigeria’s Vision 20: 2020” is organized to attract all stakeholders in the non-oil export sector, including, among others, micro, small and medium enterprises(MSME), top exporters, banks, shipping lines, insurance companies, chambers of industry, and government agencies.
Some of the salient issues to be addressed, Boyede added, include: Reviving Nigeria’s Textile Industry, Promoting Targeted Agribusiness Export Potentials, Developing a New Incentives Basket for Nigeria’s Exports, Challenges of Export Financing in Nigeria, Harnessing Opportunities in Tourism Exports.
(Source:Leadership, Nigeria/The Norwegian Council for Africa)
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Polygamy Hall of Fame, by Vincent Duhem

Famed internationally for his practice of extreme polygamy, 94 year old Acentus Akuku, aka “Danger”, kicked the bucket on October 3 in Kenya after having been married 130 times and fathering nearly 300 children.

In a country where life expectancy does not exceed 54 years, Acentus Akuku’s life story is one that is almost surreal. Famous for getting married 130 times and fathering nearly 300 children, the absolute ladies man died Sunday at age 94.
His nickname “Danger” was coined because according to him “I overshadowed many men when it came to women.” He was a danger to those men who were not smart enough to get married before he came to town.
Akutu “Danger” was from the Ndhiwa District, 370 km west of Nairobi, not far from LakeVitoria. Polygamy is widespread among the Luo tribe who live in this region of Kenya.
Polygamy has a special status in the predominantly Christian country. Banned by the constitution, polygamy is only tolerated by the country’s customary laws.
Ego
Having 130 wives is undeniable an ego booster. I was very handsome. “I dressed well and I knew how to charm women with sweet talk. No woman could decline my advances. I was a magnet” he once said.
But his over-sized ego did not prevent him from looking over his shoulder to make sure other men were not getting too close to his bevy of ladies. “I had spies attached to each home. They briefed me on how each woman went about her business in my absence,” he admitted.
The man is known to have divorced 85 of his wives for being unfaithful. And according to him “With the threat of HIV and Aids, I had to be strict with the conduct of each woman.” He said the 85 women “posed a serious risk” to his life.
Business
But apart from taking advantage of the situation what else could he do with 300 children? “Danger” ran his family as a business enterprise. Dowries paid for by his daughters’ would be husbands was a serious affair.
With his family, came great power. Over time he built a small business empire; a taxi company run by his sons. And most small businesses in his community, eventually, came to be held by his offspring.
Africa’s most celebrated polygamist did not wait for an epitaph on his grave to make history. A true legend, he was listened to, consulted and respected. Famous and celebrated, his reputation went beyond the shores of his native Kenya.
Indeed, Acentus Akuku whose polygamous “odyssey” began with his first marriage in 1939 and ended with his last marriage to 18 year old Josephine in 1997 at the youthful age of 81, would be remembered.
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Mass circumcision in South African Prisions

South African prison ask to be circumcised

An incredible number of prisoners in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province are calling upon the authorities to circumcise them to help combat the spread of HIV. Health authorities say they have had more people wanting to be circumcised than their resources can manage and are overwhelmed.

World Health Organization (WHO) studies show compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60% and recommends that male circumcision should be considered an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention in countries and regions with heterosexual epidemics, high HIV and low male circumcision prevalence. Believe in circumcision varies widely in Sub-Saharan Africa as we reported here a couple of weeks ago. KwaZulu-Natal has one of the highest HIV infection rates in South Africa and the voluntary call by the prisoners to receive the service is an indication of the magnitude of the problem and also an encouraging sign that education makes an impact. Male circumcision provides only partial protection, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package. Some figures on HIV in South Africa Number of people with HIV: 5.7 million Prevalence, ages 15 to 49: 18% Patients receiving anti-retroviral drugs: 460,000 (estimated in 2008) Deaths due to Aids: 350,000 (estimated in 2007) Number of Aids orphans: 1.4 million Source: UNAids/WHO/Unicef epidemiological fact sheet, 2008

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