Love

She is 16 with a sweet smile. She lives in a concrete shack down a narrow path from Red Light market. Her step-mother threw her out of the house and beat her after she started having sex for money a year ago. She says she was pressured to do it by a friend.

She has a sixth grade education and can't read but takes my arm protectively when the man comes out of nowhere and falls in front of my car. These things happen here, the policeman explains. He was drunk, Cristiana insists. Love says little but keeps her arm linked with mine. She shows us where she lives with her boyfriend, who she acknowledges uses drugs. They share a mattress covered in a floral bedspread, a table with a crumpled pack of Marlboros and half a loaf of bread.

She charges 150 or 120 LD -- about $2 -- she tells me over a $10 meal of chicken wings and Coke.