Thursday, July 31, 2008

Child prostitution up after Kenya's election bloodshed

This time last year, Janet Kimani spent her days at school and her nights fighting with her little brother.
Now, she sleeps all day and sells her skinny, 14-year-old body at night for $3 an hour."There are so many of us girls on the streets these days," Janet, dressed in a black miniskirt and white blouse, told The Associated Press in Eldoret, a western Kenya town that was a flashpoint of this year's deadly postelection crisis.Prostitution and sexual exploitation are on the rise in the wake of the violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, eviscerated the economy and forced tens of thousands of children to leave school, doctors and human rights groups say.A girl lies in a brothel next to a baby born to a prostitute in Mombasa, Kenya, a center of trade in underage girls.
Sex without condoms raises alarm about AIDS
Although no firm figures are yet available, medical experts say they fear the increase in young prostitutes -- known here as "twilight girls"

No comments: