•ON DUTY: The ladies of the night awaiting customers. Photo: Sun News Publishing

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FULL picture of organized prostitution in Lagos State emerged weekend, as a study showed that there are 2,567 duly registered commercial sex workers in various brothels across the state.

The revelation, incidentally, came at a time the police stepped up a blitz of raids on the brothels, accusing the resident whores of harbouring criminals.

In an ironic twist, the report listed policemen, commercial drivers and youngsters, as top patrons of brothels.
Co-incidentally, an amalgam of non-governmental organizations under the aegis of Awareness International, also last week beamed its searchlight on the prostitution trade in Lagos, with a view to ascertaining the prevalence rate of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

According to Hon. Azeez Aladeyelu, Programme Coordinator of Health Awareness and Gender Advocacy Initiative, a principal group in the research work, only Kebbi State has no representative among Lagos commercial sex workers.
Edo State leads the chart of the prostitutes with 300 indigenes, followed by Ebonyi State, which has 200 and Cross River State, 187.

Other States with resident prostitutes reading from a hundred are Abia, 168; Imo, 154; Delta, 152; Akwa Ibom, 145; Bayelsa; 128, Enugu, 124; Anambra, 108 and Osun, 100.
In the survey, Ondo and Oyo have 90 indigenes apiece; Rivers, 83; Ogun, 72; Ekiti, 60; Lagos and Kogi, 48 apiece; Kwara and Benue, 45 apiece; Adamawa 32 and Kano, 30.
Others are: Katsina, 24; Kaduna, 23; Niger and Sokoto, 20 apiece; Plateau 18; Bauchi 14; Taraba, 8; Abuja 7; Jigawa 6; Borno, Gombe, Nasarawa, and Yobe, 4 apiece and Zamfara, 2.

Aladeyelu, who noted that there are 93 major brothels in Lagos, commended resident prostitutes for "insisting on using condom and in the process helping to prevent the spread of the AIDS disease".
He lampooned the street whores or those he called "serial date-lovers" as they often engage in sex without protection.

He said government could only reduce prostitution by providing more jobs for the country’s budgeoning youth population, as many took to the trade to eke out a living.
Saidhe: "We were able to discover that most of them (prostitutes) were actually not interested in the job. They don’t even want their family members and friends to know that they are doing that kind of job.
"They are into this job because of poverty, lack of parental care, inability to go to school or inability to get selves engaged in a vocational training".

Penultimate week, about 200 prostitutes were arrested and some prosecuted in serial police invasion of the brothels, in search of hedonistic criminals.