Teenage prostitution was a problem in Haiti before the earthquake, but the number of girls, some as young as 8, who have been forced to have sex to survive has increased dramatically since. Above, Madeleine, a 16 year-old prostitute inside her tent with a neighborhood friend.
“The first night, they told me to stand there and wait,” says Madeleine. “A few minutes after, one of the girls left with a man and then came back and said ‘Okay, I made money. It’s easy, you just need to have sex and then they are going to give you 100 or 150 gourds [$2.50 or $3.70] and that’s it.’”
Read more about the challenges gay people face around the world:
In Haiti, Jamaica, Istanbul, Nepal and many others members of the LGBTQI community face widespread discrimination, risk of violence and even death. As the global voices article linked above demonstrates, slow progress is being made but a lot of work remains.
![Teenage prostitution was a problem in Haiti before the earthquake, but the number of girls, some as young as 8, who have been forced to have sex to survive has increased dramatically since. Above, Madeleine, a 16 year-old prostitute inside her tent with a neighborhood friend.
“The first night, they told me to stand there and wait,” says Madeleine. “A few minutes after, one of the girls left with a man and then came back and said ‘Okay, I made money. It’s easy, you just need to have sex and then they are going to give you 100 or 150 gourds [$2.50 or $3.70] and that’s it.’”
Haiti’s horrendous teenage prostitution problem »
Image by Andre Lambertson. Haiti, 2011.](https://web.archive.org/web/20111216085531im_/http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqpk5yToqS1qdltkno1_500.jpg)
