Five years ago, a Ghanaian newspaper exposed a brothel that employed underage sex workers. But not for long. The one hundred and sixty girls, taken into care by the Department, were put back on the streets a mere two days later. Today, they work on the side of the Accra railway tracks. Only here, next to the railway, the music plays loud and fast and tiny light bulbs brighten the wooden shacks. A bunch of men chat with young girls in tight tops and miniskirts.
She wears no make up, and flashes a wide grin every time she speaks. As she moves to join other girls dancing under a bright light, it is clear that she is a few months pregnant. Maafia is one of over a hundred young girls who work here every night. The brothel counts ten bedrooms, five on each side of a tiny walkway lit by blue fluorescent lamps.
It smells of tobacco, cheap perfume and body odor. Used condoms and tissue paper, wet with semen and lubricant are piled in the wastebaskets by each doorway. He knocks hard on the doors: they have had their five minutes. Chidi signals the five waiting girls to move in, each with their client in tow. They will spend their five minutes either on a thick blanket on the floor or on an uncomfortable wooden bed. Of this, two Cedis go to the landlord; the rest is shared between the girl and her pimp.
You have to have sex with six or more clients every night to earn enough to survive. You'll pass young boys smoking or gambling there, and the pimps who stand close to their motorbikes.
At dusk, these carry the girls to the railway tracks; they take them back to their rooms in the slum at dawn. During business hours they stand with the eyes fixed on their particular girls. They fight, beat and often rob clients who try to cheat. Close by, middle-aged women with dishes and buckets sell fried yam and roasted plantain. One of them, Auntie Yaa, also sells condoms and tissue paper to the girls who patronize her brothel. Savvy traders are everywhere: people sell bed sheets, leggings, ice cream, coffee.
