Prostitution has always been a major issue of the world. Often women are forced into this profession due to poverty, human trafficking, illiteracy, desertion, etc. There are around 13,828,700 Prostitutes in the world and the number is increasing day by day. Prostitution is illegal in the majority of African countries but still the numbers speak a different story and Nigeria is one of the biggest names in this business.
Lagos is Nigeria’s largest city or I should say a city where the Angels of Death live. Nearly a quarter of prostitutes in Nigeria have HIV, recent studies found. There are an estimated 1.2 million people in Lagos living with HIV .
Tens of thousands of women some as young as 14 have been forced into the horrifying conditions and in this business in order to survive in the Lagos slum of Badia . A woman can take 5 clients a day to survive but sometimes they often only make £10 a day. The poor West African country, with a population of 140 million people, has the third highest number of people with HIV/AIDs in the world – after India and South Africa.
The country’s capital of Lagos is believed to have 1.2 million people infected with the virus, which is the equivalent of the population of the Netherland’s capital of Amsterdam. And if you think disease is the only thing they are worried about than you are wrong because many have experienced violence, rape, kidnap and theft in their work.
The pictures were taken by photographer Ton Koeneon
