Migration, Urbanization, and Adolescent Prostitution in Nigeria

Abstract

The article begins with a brief discussion of migration and urbanization and its attendant problems in propagating prostitution among adolescent girls in Nigeria. It argues that the combined effects of urbanization, as well as people’s increasing agitation to secure greener pastures in cities, have made a large number of adolescent girls migrate to cities in the hope of meeting some basic needs of life—an adventure that turns out contrary to their expectations and predisposes some of them into the act of prostitution. Due to excruciating poverty within various families and the impacts of this awkward situation on most adolescent girls, delivery of quality social support services and care to the adolescent girls has been undermined over time, and their life chances have been affected, thereby making them most vulnerable to prostitution as a means of livelihood. The article concludes on socioeconomic constraints as the primary factors that push adolescent girls into prostitution in Nigeria, and these same factors are seen to influence their migration from one geographical location to another. The article recommends programs that will reduce the poverty level and unemployment trends among adolescent girls across a wide range of Nigerian societies. Drawing upon lessons learnt from the existing literature, there is an urgent need for collective social action through which more resources must be put in place to ameliorate the conditions of young girls at the interface of migration for greener pastures.