MARKET WOMEN

Photograph by J. C. McCall

Open markets remain an important site of local commerce in Nigeria. The vast majority of vendors are women. These women are selling imported clothes in the village market in Akanu, Ohafia. Clothes donated by American religious charities are distributed in bulk to Nigerian jobbers who sell them to market vendors. For this reason, most available American-made clothes are very inexpensive compared to the prices charged for locally produced garments. As a result, distinctively American clothes such as the Leonardo De Caprio T-shirt shown here, are more often worn by poor farmers than by fashion conscious urban Nigerians.