The horrors experienced by sex workers in Sierra Leone

Isata, a single mom in her early twenties, epitomizes the horror of life as a intercourse employee in Sierra Leone.

She was crushed, robbed, kidnapped, trafficked to a different nation, rescued, trafficked, and rescued once more.

Within the midst of all of it, she turns into hooked on Kush, a harmful road drug that’s wreaking havoc within the West African nation.

BBC Africa Eye spent 4 years following the lives of a bunch of intercourse staff in Makani, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the capital Freetown.

The town’s location in a diamond-rich area fueled Sierra Leone’s civil battle – a battle with devastating penalties that also exists as we speak.

Isata is one among a whole bunch of intercourse staff in Makeni. Like all the ladies we spoke to, she selected to solely go by her first identify.

“All of the sacrifices I made have been for my daughter. I went via quite a lot of ache on the streets,” she mentioned.

“I met a man in a membership. He tore my garments. He took cash from my bra. I used to be attempting to battle my approach out. He hit me behind the pinnacle with a gun. He needed to kill me.

It is a harmful life – among the ladies we met have been additionally contaminated with HIV.

Others have been killed.

However many really feel they haven’t any selection.

In a darkish swamp within the metropolis, two intercourse staff pointed to an space strewn with empty grain sacks.

One of many younger ladies, Mabinty, informed us that is the place they work facet by facet – assembly as much as 10 males an evening.

These folks pay them a greenback a time.

She is struggling to make sufficient cash to assist her kids. She gave start to 6 kids, however three of them died.

The opposite three are in school.

“A baby has simply taken an examination. I’ve no cash to ship him to highschool except I work as a prostitute. These are my pains,” she mentioned.

It’s estimated that hundreds of girls throughout Sierra Leone have turned to intercourse work.

A lot of them have been younger ladies orphaned by the battle, which by its finish in 2002 had claimed greater than 50,000 lives and displaced practically half the nation’s inhabitants.

Charities say the variety of younger women working within the intercourse commerce has elevated additional because the nation grapples with the Ebola outbreak and the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Like many crises, these have disproportionately affected ladies.

Prostitution just isn’t unlawful within the nation, however ladies are thought of outcasts and obtain no assist from the federal government or society.

Shortly after we meet Isata in 2020, she is kidnapped by a legal gang and compelled into intercourse slavery in The Gambia, Senegal, and eventually Mali.

She managed to discover a telephone and described her life there.

“The best way they approached us was like they needed to kill us except we accepted it,” she mentioned.

“I am in a lot ache.”

BBC Africa Eye then tracked her down and the United Nations company the Worldwide Group for Migration (IOM) helped Isata return to Sierra Leone.

She gave up intercourse work, however once we meet her in 2021, she’s cooking in a neighborhood kitchen, attempting to make sufficient cash to look after her daughter.

In 2023, once we obtained the newest information about Isata, she had returned to prostitution after changing into hooked on Kush, a psychoactive combination of addictive substances offered cheaply. May contain human bones.

The drug has turn out to be such an issue in Sierra Leone that the president has declared a nationwide emergency within the nation.

Affected by the consequences of her drug dependancy, Isata left behind her youngest youngster, a four-month-old son.

He was cared for by Isata’s mom, Pose.

“The stress of road life led her to start out smoking Kush. It was stress,” Posey mentioned.

Nata can be a single mom in her twenties.

She has three daughters.

We met her at house as she was on the point of exit to work.

“I would like my kids to do effectively. I hope God solutions my prayers.

Her daughter watches her mom placed on make-up. She informed us she needed to be a lawyer when she grew up.

“To assist my mother,” she mentioned.

On the opposite facet of city we met one other younger lady named Rugiatu, about 10 years previous.

Her mom, Gina, can be a intercourse employee. She was murdered in 2020 on the age of 19.

Rugiatu now lives along with her aged grandmother.

“My mother and pa are useless now. I am left with my grandma. If my grandma died, all I may do is go begging on the streets,” Rugiatu mentioned.

“I do not need them to kill me on the street, too.”

After we subsequent see Nata, she is unrecognizable. She can be obsessive about Kush.

“I am not blissful about it, however I do not wish to suppose an excessive amount of about it,” she informed us.

“Generally, after I keep in mind it, I cry. That is why I smoke, to overlook.

Her three daughters needed to go reside with relations.

Then, in early 2024, extra unhealthy information got here for Isata.

She was trafficked once more, as a part of a bunch of girls who have been promised nanny jobs in Ghana however ended up being taken to Mali and compelled into prostitution within the goldfields.

“I wish to be taken house. I am begging and I remorse all the pieces,” Isata informed us by telephone.

She mentioned she was frightened when the person who agreed to work as a nanny averted police checkpoints and border posts at each stage of the journey.

“He handed us over to a Nigerian girl named Pleasure,” she mentioned.

“We requested: ‘You informed us we have been going to Ghana to do nanny work, is that this Ghana?'”

“Pleasure requested us: ‘Weren’t we informed to return and do intercourse work?’ and I mentioned: ‘No’.

“She mentioned: ‘Go get some cash’ and provides it to her.”

Like many trafficked ladies, Isata was informed she needed to work and pay her traffickers massive sums of cash to purchase her freedom.

They informed her she needed to pay $1,700 (£1,300).

She needed to have intercourse with a whole bunch of males to make that a lot cash.

Her traffickers informed her she had three months to pay them.

The Worldwide Group for Migration – the United Nations company that helps trafficked folks – says hundreds of Sierra Leoneans, together with kids, are trafficked yearly.

They’re both kidnapped or tricked into touring overseas with the promise of higher jobs.

As an alternative, they’re offered to foreigners in numerous international locations throughout the continent and find yourself subjected to pressured labor or sexual exploitation.

Many might by no means see house once more.

Thankfully for Isata, she lastly returned to Makeni to reside along with her mom and two kids.

You’ll be able to watch the complete BBC Africa Eye documentary Intercourse Employees: Dwelling within the Shadows on the BBC Africa YouTube channel or on iPlayer within the UK.