Between misery, violence, and Dreams: So prostitutes living on the streets of Sierra Leone

May 27, 2019

Eleven years of the civil war was raging in Sierra Leone – a country rich in diamonds, but also corruption. In one of the poorest countries in the world, many girls have been driven in the teen age by the war in the Prostitution, they learned early on that it was “normal” when Sex enables them to Survive.

After the war, the Prostitution disappeared. On the contrary, the dissolution of the traditional structures of a scene of the defiant Survival has to be created. Girls run away from home or are thrown out by Relatives as the unnecessary eaters out. Try your hand with peers in the subculture, between Bars, alcohol and Prostitution to make ends meet. Aid agencies are watching the development in the country with concern, since the Ebola epidemic 2016, the number of very young prostitutes had increased greatly. Sierra Leon is poor, 80 percent have less than 2 Euro on the day. The young girls move to the mining towns and to provide the foreign workers.

In Freetown, the capital, make the girls at night on the street to attract men. Fatmata Kanu (18 years) and Mariama Fofonah (20 years old) to work on the streets of Freetown, they told the BBC their stories. The camera team shows in the unadorned, as the two women prepare to apply make-up and with beads decorated clothes. The women talk relentlessly about their experiences of humiliation, violence, despair. The BBC Reporter waive arrangement or a narrator – you give women space to report.

“They would have sex with me all day and give me $0.57”

This is what life is like working as a prositute in Sierra Leone

[Tap to expand] https://t.co/0YvFpoRerq pic.twitter.com/uEiX4oBop5

— BBC News (World) (@Bbcworldwide) 21. May 2019

Here you will read the Translation.

I have nothing to eat, if I don’t find men on the street, which is to say that you want me.

Then you will take me into their houses, they want the whole day about Sex.

you give me 5000 Leones (50 cents).

I was 14 years old when I went on the road.

Our mother decided to throw us out, because they could not afford to provide for us.

she has always said that we are bastards.

****

Reporter: do you Want your bruises and scratch cover.

Yes. You are already better. Better. The last Time I was together with a guy. As we have discussed, “flesh to flesh” (unprotected Sex).

After we had Sex, he refused to give me my money.

He ran away with my money, for which I had worked and he also took my phone.

I tried to fight with him.

that’s Why he has punched me in the face, on the body.

He hit me and then ran away.

****

I tried to talk with the men I met on the street and tell them that I want to change my life.

I told you, I don’t want to live on the street and asked if you can help me. And give money, so I can go to school.

One of the men who had said that he would take care of me, started beating me.

****

If my mother had not died of Ebola, I would not do this.

At the end she could do nothing, not even speak.

she couldn’t speak and nobody could understand them.

****

This Mascara is, I’ll do the eyes again.

I’m not nervous.

We are accustomed to,

We are accustomed to this work.

Some men to see you, then, they say, “Oh, this Baby looks so cute, she looks so sweet. Baby, please, come here and let us spend time together.

Reporter: How much of customers you need to be happy?

Seven to eight customers. In one night.

Sometimes I do it in two minutes – for 5000 Leones (50 cents).

The meat-price is 50,000 Leones (5 Euro).

condoms cost of 25,000 (€2.50).

“They would have sex with me all day and give me $0.57”

This is what life is like working as a prositute in Sierra Leone

[Tap to expand] https://t.co/0YvFpoRerq pic.twitter.com/uEiX4oBop5

— BBC News (World) (@Bbcworldwide) 21. May 2019