We should target our rage at poverty rather than Moesha Boduong – Victoria Hammah

A public debate on how to develop practical ways to eradicate poverty and injustice should be the focus of all Ghanaians at the moment rather than channeling anger and resentment at Actress Moesha Boduong over her ‘sex for comfort’ comments, Former Deputy Minister of Communication, Victoria Hammah has said.

Moesha earned the rage of several Ghanaians after she made comments to suggest Ghanaian women depend on ‘sex with men’ for survival. In an interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour said that Ghana’s economy is such that a woman needs someone to take care of her because they cannot make enough money as it is without the intervention of these men, a comment that obviously struck a wrong nerve for many Ghanaians.

Commenting on the subject in an epistle, Miss Hammah played up the role of poverty in the country and how it to a large extent results in asymmetrical sexual power relations.

According to her, women over the years have been marginalized in society and discriminated against and the situation of sex for financial security has become the case because of abject poverty that exists in society and the inability of governments to tackle the core of such issues.

Miss Hammah believes the ‘hypocritical moral narratives being thrown at actress and socialite Moesha Boduong for her candid and brutish honesty on Christine Amanpour’s “Sex and Love’ across the world only reflect the ignorant reactionary elements of our society” and the reaction of host Christine Amanpour is hypocritical considering the fact that US has subjected women to various forms of stereotypes and gender inequalities.

Rather than focus on ‘bashing’ the young lady and doing nothing about the real issues on the ground, she proposed that a public debate should be created and the issue extensively tackled such that positive results are achieved consequently.



Read below her full statement:

The hypocritical moral narratives being thrown at actress and socialite Moesha Boduong for her candid and brutish honesty on Christiane Amanpour’s “Sex and Love’ across the world only reflect the ignorant reactionary elements of our society.

Did I see Christine Amanpour express surprise at Moesha Boduong's position? This is even more hypocritical?

The US society is rooted in inequalities of not just gender but racial and even economic. The US has the largest pornography industry in the world contributing more than half to the global porn industry. It is undeniable that the porn industry does not only commodify and commercialize the woman’s body but reinforces historical stereotypes of women as sex objects.

Sex for financial security is the result of an uneven distribution of resources. Sex for money is the consequence of poverty and nothing else.

The above raises the realities of inequalities in our societies steeped in the social divisions of labour underscored by “capitalist economic governance”.



This issue should be looked at from a purely historical and materialist positon.

Being a woman in itself is a historical challenge and especially being a woman in a society such as Ghana with staggering poverty will obviously perpetuate an asymmetrical sexual power relations.

The debate should be about how governments should create enabling environment and opportunities to eradicate poverty!

We should broaden the debate to include even more devastating social inequitable issues such as child prostitution, rising teenage pregnancies, rising youth unemployment, maternal mortality, lack of access to adequate health care etc.



Even more importantly, we must eliminate social and cultural discriminatory practices and institutions that mitigate against women and other marginalized groups.

As well as implement affirmative policies across all socioeconomic structures of our society as an effective way to address inequalities.

In this case our collective enemy is Poverty not bold Moesha Boduong and the many ordinary Ghanaian women and men who have to subject themselves to indignity just to survive.