“When we keep our crises private, they grow fatter every day and then they start to strangle us.”

Sobunfu Some

An Innocence Stolen

All street children are dangerously vulnerable to sexual abuse and child prostitution. The heartbreaking reality is that the vast majority of these young children engage in prostitution as a means of survival.

Young boys have often been sexually abused by older gang members or homeless men in the streets. Many street girls lose their virginity at a very young age through rape. In Casablanca groups of young girls huddle together in shabby little rooms where they wait for their next clients. Worse still is that these children even have an international clientele, of Westerners and Gulf Arabs.

Another huge cause for concern is the health risks that these children are continuously exposed to, particularly that of incurable infections such as HIV and eventually AIDS.

The subject of sexual abuse, prostitution and other forms of commercial exploitation remain a huge taboo. Denial of this distressing situation makes it even more difficult to address and only serves to intensify the marginalisation of these children.