Child Prostitution

BEIRUT, 6 March (IRIN) - At a glance, Nadine (not her real name) is an innocent, 16 year-old-girl, but a conversation with her soon reveals the shocking details of the hard life she endured as a child. "I didn't choose to work as a prostitute," she said. "It's just my luck in life."

Explaining how she was raped at the age of nine by a neighbour, and therefore "had nothing to lose" when she accepted money for the first time in exchange for sex with an older man, Nadine blamed her situation on her family's financial needs.

"My parents needed money so they sent me to work as a housemaid at the age of 12. Do you know how much I had to put up with in my situation?" Nadine asked rhetorically. "All men want is one thing – your body! So I decided to ask for money in exchange for what I was offering."

Now in her fourth year of working in the sex trade, Nadine talks about the abuses she suffered by men she has slept with. "I've been beaten up, forced to have unprotected sex, thrown out in the middle of the night without getting paid… but life goes on," she said.

There is little protection for sex workers in Lebanon, where prostitution is illegal. Even though some amendments in the law have been made to encourage exploited children to come forward, they often remain reluctant. The official age of adulthood in Lebanon is 18.

"I can't go to the authorities and file a complaint. What would I say? 'I slept with this man and he refused to pay me my money'?" said Nadine, refusing to say how much she usually charged customers.

Although not a widespread phenomena in Lebanese society, child prostitution does exist. But there are no official statistics on the numbers or nationalities of minors working, or forced to work, in the illicit industry. "There's no way of telling the number of children working as prostitutes," said Rania Mansour, a social worker with Dar Al-Amal, a local NGO that helps sex workers.

posted by Lazarus, 4:00 PM