During a sensitisation workshop, the Bauchi State Government revealed that it’ll conduct a headcount on s.e.x workers in the State.
Speaking on Monday, the Permanent Commissioner in charge of Hisbah and Sharia implementation, Aminu Balarabe-Isah, stated that accurate data was needed on s.e.x workers.
Aminu disclosed that the information generated from the exercise would help the commission in taking measures aimed at discouraging them from continuing with their ‘dangerous’ trade.
He revealed the plans by the state government to organise empowerment programmes for them, as well as provide them with capital to start small scale businesses.
He explained that investigations conducted by his agency indicated that most of the s.e.x workers took to prostitution as a result of illiteracy, poverty or maltreatment meted on them by their step-mothers.
He said that minor family squabbles also contributed to their decision to take to prostitution, assuring that government would make efforts to reunite them with their parents.
The commissioner expressed the readiness of the state government to organise mass marriages for those of them who were lucky to get serious suitors.
Hafsatu Azare, who spoke on behalf of the s.e.x workers, assured that they were willing to quit the trade if the government would empower them economically, describing their condition as pathetic.
