Côte d’Ivoire: Children selling sex, having babies

The baby was born and 12 days later died on a dilapidated upper floor of the Adjamé market in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan. The mother, Aminata*, is barely 15. She does not know who the father is. Aminata exchanges sex for money – so she can eat, she said. Aminata is among scores of young girls – some as young as 10, according to a local NGO – who sell their bodies at Adjamé market, known locally as ‘Biêlôgô’; in the Dioula language, lôgô means market and biê means the female sex organ.