What Are the Causes of Child Prostitution?
Almost all the girls interviewed mentioned poverty, lack of financial support from their parents and the need to eat and clothe themselves as reasons for getting involved in prostitution. Thus, in many ways, in addition to mere sexual exploitation, the children’s poverty is exploited. Another way in which child prostitutes are victimised is their social exclusion and stigmatisation. Even though there are also boys who prostitute themselves, prostitution in Mozambique still seems to be a mainly female domain, where the feminisation of poverty becomes most cruelly evident. Most girls become prostitutes to seek better living conditions and—due to their desperate situation and/or lack of information—do not care about the consequences, which can include contracting STDs and HIV through unprotected sex. Sex without condoms is not only more lucrative but is imposed on them due to their lack of power to negotiate the use of condoms. Another factor is their ignorance, or in most cases ‘half kno
