Precious* was 12 years old when she first sold sex, to a man nearly four times her age. Now 18, the Liberian schoolgirl says she sleeps with between five and six men on an average day in order to pay her school fees, which are the cheapest available at $1 500 Liberian dollars per year. She receives between $25 and $50 for each man.
“When I go on the street, men give me money and I can eat, pay my fees,” Precious explained, her chin resting on her hands. “It’s almost five years since I’ve seen my family.”
In a country with an unemployment rate of 85%, Precious is working in an overcrowded market.
Save the Children believes between 60% and 80% of Liberian girls sell sex to fund their education and basic living costs. The charity says that men prefer younger girls — who are thought to be cheaper, more pliable and less of a health risk — to their older sisters. Research released by the organisation this week shows that it costs half the income of an average Liberian family to educate one child for a year.
Liberia is a failed state. The epicentre of West Africa’s conflicts, it has had no electricity, no running water and no land lines for 14 years.
The country has been shattered by decades of corruption and years of civil war, when drugged-up child soldiers rampaged through the streets of the capital. Sometimes they wore dresses in the belief that their victims’ spirits would not recognise them to take revenge; other times they ate the hearts of enemy dead. About 250 000 people died.
Two years after a peace deal was signed in 2003, the rebels have been disarmed and former President Charles Taylor is in exile, under indictment for war crimes by an international court. Liberia is patrolled by 15 000 heavily armed United Nations peacekeepers and ruled by a transitional government due to hold elections on October 11.
As the 22 presidential hopefuls kick off their campaigns, it is promises of a free education that draw the biggest roars from the crowds. For a generation of Liberians whose schooling has been disrupted, it is seen as the one sure-fire ticket out of the poverty trap.
When soccer star George Weah launched his campaign recently, he promised, “I want to send more teachers and students abroad to strengthen our educational system.” His next sentence was drowned in cheers. The former Chelsea player’s rags-to-riches story of growing up in the country’s slums is a dream come true for girls like Precious and her friends.
“Sometimes I am afraid,” admitted 18-year-old Mary*. “Sometimes they can beat me, but I feel fine if I get money because I am saving for school.”
After her older brother was killed during the war, selling sex was the only way to survive. It is a decision full of tough choices. Mary refuses to have sex without a condom, although she would be paid twice as much. “They ask but I say no,” she explained. “If I get pregnant, how will I go to school?”
She is excited by the new-found peace that has come to her country and the opportunities it might bring.
At a donor conference last year, the international community promised more than $520-million to help rebuild the country.
Concerns over corruption mean that the aid is funnelled through NGOs rather than the government, resulting in projects like the local resource centre run by Save the Children.
“Many of these children have lost the true meaning of what society is. The thing that binds a family together has been broken by war,” said Helen Harris, a social worker at the centre.
The girls who come here have simple dreams — to be a nurse, work in an office, sleep alone at night. In a country where the politicians have drained the nation’s coffers and murdered its citizens, they are willing to brave beatings, disease and murder to put themselves through private school.
Mary stills her hands and looks straight ahead. “If you go to school, you are not afraid and they can’t bluff you,” she said softly. “If you learn, you can go anywhere, but if you don’t know books then you can’t go nowhere.”
At such times she seems to be a living example of the motto peeling from the signboard of Buchanon Primary School — Never Despair.
* Not their real names.