More and more children in Ghana work as prostitutes. Melphia, 13, is one of them. She lives in a slum and at night, she has sex with businessmen, police officers and, increasingly, tourists. Every evening, Melphia leaves a place locals refer to as "hell on earth" and goes somewhere even worse.
To a hotel room where the curtains are always drawn. Melphia is 13 years old. She lives in a slum in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana. And for the past three years, she has worked as a child prostitute. Melphia has sex with up to five men per night: workers, businessmen, police officers -- and increasingly, tourists. She doesn't even know the names of most of her clients. What she does know is that "obronis," white men, pay more than Ghanaians.
For the past two years, the economy in the West African country has been growing more quickly again and things in Ghana have noticeably improved. This also means more people are coming into the country, such as Chinese investors and European tourists. And along with them come those interested in hiring prostitutes.
But the number has recently been climbing and it has become a normal sight in some places. The youngest are just 9 years old. Melphia looks younger than She's small and thin and has elbows that stick out sharply. Like the other girls in the slum, she has a short afro that emphasizes her pretty, childish face. She has a hard time sitting still, pulling her knees in and searching her fingers for bits of her nails she hasn't yet chewed off.
And then she begins telling her story, the sounds of the slum floating around her: drunks scream, Nigerian hip-hop blasts from old speakers and someone moans loudly during sex. It's close to 40 degrees Celsius Fahrenheit and the air is so humid that the walls inside the hut are sweating. Melphia was 10 when she climbed onto a bus in her village, located about an hour from Kumasi.
