The Racial Politics of Anti-Prostitution Legislation: World War II and the Sex Trade in British West Africa

During the build up to and onset of WWII rampant prostitution between European military personnel stationed in the Gold Coast and West African sex workers led to high rates of venereal disease and ultimately culminated in the adoption of stricter anti-prostitution laws. Although two attempts were made in 1911 and 1925 by local chiefs to persuade the colonial government to reform laws on prostitution because of the negative impact venereal diseases were having on the health of African communities, it was not until 1942-43, when high incidences of venereal disease among European military personnel began to hurt the war effort that the laws on prostitution were finally reformed. Consistent with other instances in which the colonial government intervened to create sexual boundaries between Africans and Europeans, this legal intervention was necessitated precisely because the sexual practices of European men in the Gold Coast, during WWII, began to blur the alleged distinction between “African” and “European” sexualities which partly underpinned the claim to European racial superiority embedded in the “civilizing mission.” Thus, this intervention serves to underscore that colonizing European male sexuality was central to the wider colonial project and the racial politics that underpinned it.
The influx of thousands of European and American male military personnel was one component in the rise in interracial prostitution in WWII Gold Coast.  The other component was the traffic in women and children primarily from Nigeria into colony for the purpose of prostitution.  My paper will examine this aspect of the sex trade, while paying close attention to the way in which racist notions about African female sexuality played a decisive role in delaying the introduction of legal measures to curb colonial West Africa’s sex trade.