Rose is 15, and has been selling sex for money since the final chapter of the war in , when she was eight. Rose is one of a dozen teenage girls, scrawny and bruised, huddle d here around the glow of a candle in a generator room off Center Street. About a hundred of them take turns sleeping on a single dingy mattress during the day before heading to the streets to work at night.
Beaten and robbed by their customers, they are forced to have sex with more men and boys to make enough money to survive. In Liberia, still recovering eight years after the end of 14 years of civil war, children are driven to prostitution because of poverty. While difficult to quantify, observers say they are seeing greater numbers of ever-younger girls crowding street corners to sell sex.
Rose has a large gash on her knee, that she said was caused by a client who beat her and stole back the money he had paid her. They tear our clothes on us too after having sex with us. We do not know them but they call us like customers so we go to them but after the sex they beat us.
Lisa, 16, who also shares the generator room off Center Street, says her head was cracked with a rock by one client. A few weeks later, she alleges a security guard took her to the beach to sleep with her and then refused to pay. She is forced to sleep with many clients each night to be able to pay for food and clothing, she said. Lisa had a baby without medical assistance in the very same generator room two years ago, with Cara, another prostitute, acting as her midwife.
Of a dozen teenage sex workers interviewed, all said they had been beaten. One girl showed a deep wound in her foot which she suffered after a client refused to pay and pushed her out of his vehicle. Some claim that when they shout for help, Monrovia police officers arrive, only to further abuse them, sleep with them and steal their money.
