Heureux de te revoir! Connecte-toi pour agir. Pas encore un Global Citizen? By Nina de Vries. Sex workers there say they face assault and routine intimidation by police, clients and others. Local activists are working to provide greater opportunity and protection for women in the sex trade. On the outskirts of Freetown, Mariatu Sesay runs a small roadside cafe on the outskirts of Freetown.
But it is more than a place to get a cold drink or a warm meal. Sesay spends much of her time training any sex trade worker who wants to learn how to cook and run a small business. During Sierra Leone's year civil war, rebels killed Sesay's parents and captured her. She was 11 years old and forced to become a sex slave. The war ended in and she was eventually able to go back to school.
Image: N. Others haven't been so lucky. Many girls became orphans struggling to survive on the streets after the civil war. Julie Sesay β no relation to Mariatu Sesay β is program manager for Advocaid, a legal aid group that helps vulnerable women. The laws in Sierra Leone are ambiguous on prostitution.
Selling sex is not illegal in and of itself. Julie Sesay says female sex workers are arrested for offenses such as loitering. And they have been arrested for working in a public place. Advocaid says the women are rarely convicted on these charges and the state is wasting resources.
One sex worker in Freetown, who asked VOA not to share her name due to stigma, described her recent arrest. The woman says she lived with an aunt who was abusing her, so she ran away and began selling sex.
