Date Published: 09/08/11

Woman activist tackles striptease in Rivers State by Richards Nzemeke, NAN

If striptease -- the act of dancing naked to entertain guests at night clubs -- had been discretely done in Rivers State in the past, the phenomenon reached a new level during the period of the last National Sports Festival.

It is now history that many choice night clubs and hotels in the Garden City took the “nude shows” to higher heights, competing amongst themselves to woo customers, while smiling to the banks thereafter.

Apparently disturbed at the rising trend of striptease in the Port Harcourt metropolis, Mrs Christy Felix, a Delta-born woman activist, has taken the challenge to check the “immoral trend”, which is on the ascendancy in the state.

``It is an immoral act and it pains one the more, when you find young girls being engaged for ‘nude shows’ in some hotels and night clubs in the metropolis,’’ Christy said. The moral crusader, a mother of two females and three males, described nude dancing as an “obnoxious and immoral practice and a disgrace to the woman’s dignity”.

Christy described “nude shows” as very alien to Nigeria’s culture and totally unacceptable, stressing that it was baffling why young Nigerian girls would ever think of engaging in such immoral practices. ``There are other more dignified means of livelihood for the young ladies other than nude dancing. ”

The Rivers State branch of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) has also descried the rising trend of striptease in the state, saying that it was totally unacceptable to the Nigerian society.

Its President, Mrs Eucharia Pepple, traced the preponderance of the trade to greed on the part of the young girls and the hoteliers, emphasising that there were other decent ways and means of livelihood outside the nude dancing business.

She wondered what men derived from watching the girls dance nude, saying that“men of such genre should not be present in the congregation of men of decency”.

``For the women themselves, such an engagement robs them of their dignity and debased womanhood in general”.

Said Christy: “As a mother, I am not happy to hear that our daughters are dancing naked in public places; exposing themselves, while men  that have children of their ages at home pay to watch such obscenities. ”

Checks at the hotels where these show take place revealed that the audience is not usually limited to males only, as there are also women of different age categories, who seem to enjoy the nude dance shows.

An hotelier, who asked not to be named, confided in this reporter thus: ``There are two categories of customers of the clubs that run these shows – the regular and irregular customers. The regulars pay a monthly subscription to hotel/night club’s management, while the irregulars buy tickets any day they desired to enter the entertainment venue. ``The regular subscriber is issued an identity card to enable an unhindered access to the dance arena any day, while the second category buys a ticket only at times he visits. ”

Christy urged young girls engaged in the trade to retrace their steps, noting, however, that the information she had gathered so far was that the girls engaged in it solely for financial gains. She lamented that some of the female dancers were sometimes subjected to actions that smacked of abuse while on the stage, stressing that “some spectators do ‘insulting things’ to the dancers on stage”. Reflecting on the moral decadence in the society, she said that ``moral men of old paid hard-earned money as dowries on their wives to have access to their bodies but these days, women wrongly exposed their prized bodies simply for monetary gains”.

Nevertheless, Christy had harsh words for the hoteliers and night club owners who ran the shows, accusing them of being immoral and capitalist-minded without any sensitivity to the dignity of womanhood. The disturbing trend of the social problem notwithstanding, activists and other observers have continued to suggest ways to tackle the ugly development. Christy urged government to do something urgent about the economic empowerment of young girls, who daily roamed about in the unemployment market with no prospect of jobs whatsoever.

``I am begging the state government to do something to empower these young girls. If they have something meaningful doing, I am sure that they will not like to continue in this immoral thing. ``This is where the Rivers’ First Lady, Mrs. Judith Amaechi, should come in to help seek solution to the problem. If you do not give these girls assistance, they will continue because they are doing it for money. ” Furthermore, Christy said that the proprietors of club houses where these obscenities were taking place should be arrested by government and prosecuted under the appropriate laws of the state.

She advised parents, especially mothers, to be more meticulous in their children’s upbringing, emphasising that children who were properly brought up by their parents were less likely to engage in such unwholesome activities.

On his part, Mr. Richard Wokocha, Head of Department, Business Law, Rivers State University of Science and Technology (UST), Port Harcourt, said that the campaign against striptease in Rivers State was a moral one, which should rightly attract public support.

``How you run your life and you family is strictly personal; the issue of your health is personal. That is why if one contracts HIV/AIDS, it is one’s personal matter. If the hospital goes about to disclose it, it is a different matter entirely. ’’

He, nonetheless, insisted that nobody was at liberty to parade his/her nudity in public; as such a conduct offended the law and moral values, at least in the African context.

“Anybody who chooses to be naked could do that in his or her enclosure. ” Wokocha, however, argued that there was nothing illegal if the nude dance business is conducted in a place which restricted access to only adults and not the under-aged.

``This is why I said it is a moral campaign. But if we are able to build and strengthen our economy and add more value to the society, the girls will abandon the immoral and helpless sector to engage in more dignified economic activities”.

Wokocha commended Christy for spearheading the campaign against nude dancing in hotels and night clubs in the state but urged her to go a step further by raising funds from corporate organisations and public spirited individuals to aid the economic empowerment of young girls in the state. ``The campaign is a sound and moral one. But if we are able to build up our economy stronger, the better for us all!”

On her part, Pepple canvassed for legislation against the immoral act as well as strict operational rules for all hotels and night clubs operating in the state, while parents should better monitor the activities of their children. She stressed that the hotels were licensed to run normal hotel business, but were not permitted to organise nude dance business.

All the same, Christy is not a new comer to such a fight against social malaise. Before now, she had been at the forefront of the fight against the traditional practice of female genital mutilation, which she described as barbaric and an anathema in modern times.

While she has stepped up her campaign against striptease in Rivers state, more hotels and night clubs operating in Port Harcourt metropolis have continued to construct new dance platforms for the “nude shows”, hoping to be part of what now seems a boom for hotel and night club operators. (NANFeatures).