Happy New Year to you all! Today, I am back with my narra­tion of personalities and their accomplishments as members of the Ghanaian Diaspora in Finland with a focus on Mr Edmund Armar.

Mr Armar, affectionate­ly called ‘Eddie’ by his peers, is a well-respect­ed senior member of the Ghanaian community in Finland.

He moved to Finland in the early 1990s. He has lived in other places in Finland but now lives in Vantaa, a part of the greater Helsinki region.

Accomplishments and honours

It is important to re­count accomplishments as part of the success sto­ries of the personalities of Ghanaian descent in Finland to highlight their exploits both within the Ghanaian migrant com­munity and in the wider Finnish society.

Mr Armar has been an active member of the Ghana Union Finland, which is a non-govern­mental organisation for the Ghanaian migrant community in Finland. He is always present at events organised by the Union and contributes to the various activities at such events.

Mr Armar has other ac­complishments. He is the proud father of an adult (18 year-old) son.

Other unique charac­teristics

Mr Armar is a Ga from Accra. It may interest you to know that Mr Armar’s maternal lineage is traced from the royal family of the Ga Mantse. His late mother is a direct descen­dant of King Tackie Tawiah III.

On his paternal side, Mr Armar’s late grandfather was an astute and prom­inent businessman who also lived and was well-known in Calabar, Nige­ria. Mr Armar also comes from a well-known family of educated elites. One of his uncles was a well-known mathematician who co-authored maths books used for schools in Ghana, approved by Gha­na’s education services in the 1970s and 1980s as mathematics textbooks in schools.

Recently, I got to know that Mr Armar was a school mate of former Vice President, Dr Alha­ji Mahamudu Bawumia, whom he affectionately called Mahamudu.

They both attended Sakasaka Primary School, where Mrs Benefo served as the headmistress.

Working life in Finland

Mr Edmund Armar has worked in var­ious companies in Finland. He currently works with the Post group, Finland Posti, where he has been for many years now.

He has risen to a high rank at his workplace and has helped others to find jobs at that place and others else­where.

His role in the Ghanaian commu­nity

As I have men­tioned already, Mr Edmund Armar has been very active in the Ghanaian com­munity. He is still very active in the Ghana Union Finland and other smaller Ghanaian associations.

Apart from being an active member of the Ghana Union Finland, Mr Armar was once an execu­tive member of the Brong Ahafo Association.

He has been a counsel­lor and mentor who has guided many young Gha­naian migrants on their career paths and has also been part of helping them to settle in Finland.

Mr Armar lives in Hel­sinki with his teenage son, after the demise of his wife about nine years ago.

Dear readers, once again, a very happy new year to you all. Expect more of such interest­ing stories about people of Ghanaian descent in Finland, about Ghana immigrant groups/associ­ations and their accom­plishments in the Finnish society in my subsequent narrations. Thank you!

GHANA MATTERS col­umn appears fortnightly. Written in simple, lay­man’s terms, it concen­trates on matters about Ghana and beyond. It focuses on everyday life issues relating to the social, cultural, econom­ic, religious, political, health, sports, youth, gender, etc. It strives to remind us all that Ghana comes first. The col­umn also takes a candid look at the meanings and repercussions of our actions, especially those things we take for grant­ed or even ignore. There are key Ghanaian values we should uphold rath­er than disregard with impunity. We should not overlook the obvious. We need to search for the hidden or deeply em­bedded values and try to project them.

perpetual.crentsil@ yahoo.com

By Perpetual Crentsil

Behind any successful prostitu­tion venture is a pimp. A pimp is the official public relations officer of a prostitute. He manages the prostitute, supplies clients, organises the trade to maximise profits from which he earns an in­come. Occasion- ally, he demands a sexual treat and he is not de­nied. That is his bush allowance.

Prostitutes hire pimps because the trade is a precarious one. You have men who want hot sex on credit basis. They complete the act, get satisfied, and pretend they have no cash on them, so payment be deferred.

But sex as a commodity cannot be compared with a ball of kenkey which can be credited on a car­ry-forward basis. So the prostitute informs her pimp to make the customer pay or face an Osama Bin Laden revolutionary action. The pimp, there- fore, has a dual role, one of which is that he is a debt collector.

The collection of debt from a client can sometimes require ma­cho, so the typical pimp is hard-shelled akupa who may not be too intelligent, but has muscle. He can deliver a punch and cause internal bleeding.

So he tells the defaulting client to pay up or save his shoes and shirt and collect them back if he comes to settle. No court case!

Sometimes, the customer can­not accept the terms which in­clude walking home barefoot and half-naked, so he must fight his way out, in the process he can lose an ear, his front teeth and end up in the home with a swollen nose. It’s all part of life.

In Sikaman, most prostitutes do without pimps. They consider pimps as parasites who batten on the income they derive from strenuous work. Fact is that some clients are not normal in terms of the size of their equipment. They can cause collateral damage to the reproductive organs of the human female.

Prostitutes who do without pimps are experts in street-fighting be­cause they face problems when it comes to handling cheating clients. A client requires three rounds and it is granted. Later he says he can only pay for one. Wallahi!

The typical street prostitute develops long finger-nail, in case it comes to teaching a client where power lies. She can scratch your face red and fix a finger-nail into your eye. When you get home, you’re likely to tell your wife that you’ve got Yes, Apollo in one eye!

Servicing a client can take differ­ent forms depending on the type of prostitute and caliber of the client. Some do not like fore-play. It wastes time and is bad for busi­ness. So they get you on and order start work. They have subtle ways out of making you climax quickly. You settle your fee and make way for someone else. No messing up. No messing up. No extra time. Cli­ents who delay in reaching orgasm are advised in their own interest to “come quickly” or get thrown off.

Clients who want romance pay more. Those who wear condoms pay relatively less than those who want to go ‘raw.’ It all depends on choice. There are some who are prepared to risk AIDS to get sexu­ally satisfied. And they’d tell you, “All die be die.”

The trade in sexual acrobatics and gymnastics is having its toll on Sikaman prostitutes. Prostitutes are getting skin cancer because they use dangerous chemicals agents to bleach the skin. Others get syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes simplex.

By far, the most devastating im­pact on the flesh trade is the Hu­man Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) which causes AIDS. Go to Korle Bu and you’ll find them there. Some have had a stint in La Cote d’Ivo­ire and come back to Ghana to do some part time distribution of the virus.

Prostitution in Sikaman is be­coming a death trade because it is an enterprise that flourishes underground. If it can be legalised and brought to the surface where prostitutes can be educated on the health implications of their trade, it would do the country a lot of good.

This is being done in Namibia where 23 per cent of adults are HIV infected. They are about to get prostitution legalised to help combat the AIDS menace.

Prostitution is an evil trade. But anyone can imagine what will happen if there were no prosti­tutes. Rapists would abound and the incidence of sexual attacks and defilement will sky-rocket. Many men who would otherwise have been raping women are making do with prostitutes.

I guess to legalise prostitution would raise problems bordering in the moral psyche of the nation. But its practical significance can also not be discounted.

This article was first published on Saturday, February 10, 2001