This northern Nigerian State is offering prostitutes a payout to give up the world's oldest profession in favor of marriage.
Reuters says Namfara recently began applying strict Islamic law and first made the offer last month. The cash incentive, Reuters says, would be given to the prostitutes after they leave the business and marry, and it's aimed at helping families begin small businesses.
The payout is 25,000 naira (US$240).
Zamfara is Nigeria's first state to impose Islamic sharia, or criminal law, which usually sets amputation and beheading as the penalty for prostitution. But imposing sharia has polarized religious opinion and raised concern among other parts of Africa's most populated country, where Christianity and animist beliefs are just as widespread, Reuters says.
It also creates a problem for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. He's a born-again Christian, taking power last May and ending fifteen years of Muslim military rule.
