The Visitors

Teen prostitutes share a 10x15 concrete shelter in Monrovia.

It was after midnight when the security guard rapped at the door to tell us that the girls from the other night were back. We had first seen them around 2 a.m. two nights before when they let us interview them for a story on underage prostitution. They were small in tank tops and flip-flips, their heads wrapped in scarves, and smelled bad. They had gashes on their knees and elbows from being pushed down and beaten. One had her head smashed with a rock. Two had babies at 13 and 14. One was delivered in the house where three of them stay, the eldest, 19, acting as a midwife. One paid a downstairs neighbor 100 or 200 LD to watch her baby at night while she worked the streets. They started to sell sex for money, they said, when their parents died in World War III, the final battle before the 14-year civil war ended in 2004. One had seen her father shot down on a bridge entering Monrovia, and didn't know how her mother died. In order to make 300 LD -- about $42 USD -- one girl said she had to sleep with at least six men, but when the streets were "hot," she might sleep with as many as 20. The men and the boys often beat her and steal back the money they've paid her. The babies both died at age two. When the girls left, we had a plan to meet where they stay the following night. But one of them turned up early. She said the guard had taken her down to the boat dock, slept with her and then refused to pay. She was screaming and cursing and crying but the guard rebuked the charges, saying "I am a decent man! I am a decent man!" All I could think of was her small body shaking as she said she wanted to quit and go back to school to finish the 5th grade.