DUPORT ROAD, Paynesville – For the last three years 17-year-old Lusu has been living a hellish existence, trying to keep herself and her two babies alive, by selling the only thing she has of value: sex.
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives
Like a growing number of children living on Liberia’s streets, Lusu left her parents’ home nearby in Paynesville as a child because of extreme poverty. She was just five when her father died on an illegal mine site, leaving her mother and four siblings destitute. A boyfriend encouraged her to sell sex to buy food and drugs. By 15 she had given birth to one child and was an addict. When her boyfriend died of an overdose his family kicked her out.
“That how I got into the street life good, to start doing prostitution to help myself and my son,” Lusu says sadly.
One of the world’s poorest countries, Liberia has been unable to support its poorest children for decades. A New Narratives/Front Page Africa series in 2011 showed the toll street life was taking on children then. But an apparent dramatic increase in recent years has alarmed child advocates.
A 2022 survey by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and Unicef found 366,584 Liberian children were living “in street situations”. Ministry officials concede the number has likely increased since then. There are street children in every county. Montserrado had more than two in every five. There were more than 50,000 in Nimba and about 36,000 in each Grand Bassa and Bong.
“We didn’t know in actuality what the gravity of the situation was until this study,” says Andrew G. Tehmeh, Country Director Street Child of Liberia, a non-governmental organization. “It tells all of us in a big way, that we are in trouble. This data is really alarming and it’s a call for action to all of us who are stakeholders in the child protection area.”
No survey was done before 2022 so it is impossible to know whether that number has increased and by how much, but advocates say anecdotal evidence suggests it has.
“I think there is a huge increase in the number of street children prompted by many factors,” Mr. Tehmeh says. He says far and away the biggest cause is the growing incidence of poverty in Liberia. The number of Liberians living in poverty grew 20 per cent last year to three in every five according to the World Bank. “Until we do something about increasing the livelihood of the families, we will continue to have children in the streets.”
Poverty is the reason every one of the nearly dozen child sex workers interviewed for this story gave for why they were living on the street. Street children end up doing a variety of things to survive – begging and selling things on the streets. But experts say that as girls – and some of the boys – grow, sex work becomes common.
Lusu has ended up here, in a congested community near Du-port Road Junction, sharing a mattress in a rundown house with three small rooms and a small space used as a living area. A typical night takes her to street corners near here where she will have sex with as many as 20 clients on a good night. When she is not lucky she makes little.
“Sometimes when the street is not running; when I’m going home, I will either carry $LD1,500 ($US7) or $LD1,000 ($US5) or $LD800 ($US4),” she says.
Lusu is trying to save but most of the money she makes goes to drugs. All the girls here with Lusu have red eyes and dazed expressions from the impacts of tonight’s intake of the drug known as Kush. A mixture of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde and – according to some – ground down human bones, Kush is wreaking havoc in West Africa. It is mixed by local gangs with components imported from overseas.
None of these girls seem able to remember whether the drugs came first or the sex work. But Lusu is clear she couldn’t do the job without the drugs.
“When I take the Kush and I having sex with those men I don’t feel it,” she says. “If they are going for a longer time where I know I tired, I can run away from there.”
Princess, 17, who also sells sex, says she dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. A two-year-old son born on the streets now lives with her parents. Princess says she once dreamed of becoming a doctor. Now she has sex with 7 or 8 clients a night, making about $LD300 ($US1.50) from each client. Princess is weary.
“I tired with it, the smoking, the prostitution,” she says. “I tired with it, but no one to help us. My mother and father have turned their back on me because people tell them that I smoke, I am on the street. So they turned their back on me.”
Girls tell stories of being beaten and robbed. Most sleep under makeshift structures or in the open. They say they risk death, violence and sexually transmitted diseases every day. A nurse’s aid who treats them say gonorrhea is the most common disease followed by syphilis. Some have HIV and Aids.
It’s not just the girls who are suffering. Tonight, Lusu’s, second son, now three-months-old, lies sleeping on her lap. There are 10 babies and toddlers of sex workers living in this house. Lusu has no way of knowing which of her hundreds of clients is the father (Lusu is not her real name. All girls’ identities are being withheld to protect them from stigma.)
Condoms cost money and most clients won’t wear them. Drug addicted and young, the girls are in no state to raise babies. In desperation girls say they have given their babies to strangers who offer to take them, sometimes paying money. Others give babies to family. Those that can’t find someone to take their babies are forced to keep them with them. Though none of these girls say their babies have died, NN/FPA reporting in 2011 found most babies born to child sex workers interviewed then had died from malaria or other perils of an environment that is incredibly dangerous for babies.
Some of the luckier girls have ended up here on the floor of Martha Flomo’s three-room house on a busy street in the Du-port Road community. Madam Flomo heads Determine Women, a local organization she founded that shelters and feeds about 90 girls.
Madam Flomo started helping child sex workers here in 2019 when she met a 12-year-old sex worker at a popular bar. After few weeks, the girl pleaded with her to take her friends from the street too.
Madam Flomo is a nurse’s aid and street food seller and doesn’t have money to spare. She says she can’t help but try to help the girls so they have some self-worth and can stand on their own when they grow up. But the cost of housing and feeding as many as 10 girls a night is a strain on her family.
“Lots of them were abused by men. Lots of them were living with their foster parents,” says Madam Flomo. She says the government needs to intervene.
The Boakai government is aiming to do just that. On Wednesday, in response to the Gender Ministry/Unicef data, it will launch a project entitled “Support A Child, Save The Future”, designed to get “over 7,000 children from street situations across the country within five years”. In a press release announcing the launch the government says the pilot “symbolizes a practical approach to permanently remove 73,317 children from the streets”.
“Saving the next generation is a must. If we don’t do it, who will? If not now, then when?” said Gbeme Horace-Kollie, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, at a recent meeting with the media about the project. She said supporting Liberia’s most vulnerable was a priority for President Joseph Boakai. “Our kids’ futures are being destroyed and we do nothing about it. Some are as young as four, and five years old. This will come back to haunt all of us one way or the other.”
There was no mention of funds in the press release. In an interview Alex F. Devine, Assistant Director for Program, Partnership and Resource Mobilization at the Ministry of Gender, said the government has committed $US379,00 from the Gender Ministry’s Anti-Gender-Based Violence budget towards the first-year pilot project. The five-year project, divided into three phases, will cost $US15 million for the first and second phases. The government will ask international donors for most of the rest and launch a dollar rally campaign to persuade wealthier Liberians to help. Government officials have applauded that first financial commitment from government and insist it must continue.
“All of these things point to a very dangerous situation that we face today,” says Patience S. Heah, Director of Child Labor at the Ministry of Labor. “So for us to ensure that these things are really working the government must show the political will. If we will always depend on partners, there will be donor’s fatigue, so we wouldn’t be able to go further.”
Alex F. Devine, Assistant Director for Program, Partnership and Resource Mobilization at the Ministry of Gender agrees that an ongoing government commitment to funding is essential.
“Part of the sustainability strategy is to make sure the government owns this; it gets its own line item in the national budget,” he says.
Andrew Tehmeh of Street Child Liberia says his organization is planning to raise $300,000 for the first stage from its donors to complement Unicef, USAID and World Bank funding. Street Child’s donors include global corporations and private donors. It is planning a side event at the UN General Assembly in New York next month to persuade donors to fund the project.
The project also promises to “empower 1920 mothers and care givers associated with the children.” Children will be given care, education and “opportunities necessary for a brighter future.” But even with the best outcome the project will only remove 20 percent of the 2022 number from the streets by 2029. Experts say ultimately the only long-term solution is a strong and equitable economy that lifts families out of poverty so they can support their children at home.
Ne-Suah Beyan-Livingstone is another Liberian who has taken it upon herself to help street children through her organization Rescue for Abandoned and Children in Hardship. She urges sector leaders to educate parents in the interior. She sees many children who have been brought to the city by people making false promises of giving them better livelihoods and education when they are really going to be used as laborers – begging or street selling. This is a crime known as human trafficking, punishable by a minimum of 20 years in prison.
Meanwhile the girls continue their daily battle. Some are now willing to risk their lives to work with police to prosecute those they hold most responsible for their plight: drug dealers.
“I really want change,” Princess pleads through tears. “This life we are living is killing us.”
This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the US Embassy in Monrovia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
