Teenage girls in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown are selling their bodies to buy mobile phones, putting them at increased risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, says a study by Save the Children. "Mobile phones represent everything that an adolescent associates with being young, hip and fashionable. They are part and parcel of the idea of what they want to become, and to get them they engage in
risky sexual behaviour," said Krystle Lai, the research author.
"Young girls are driven to seek older, richer men who can afford to buy them mobile phones, but the economic power in these relationships is unbalanced and influences the bargaining power of using a condom," added Lai, noting that Sierra Leone has poor sex education.
She said once girls own a phone, especially poorer girls, the maintenance and top up may mean they have to continue selling their bodies.
The research in Freetown appears to reflect a wider global trend. The report said there was growing evidence that the demand for mobile phones was among the key drivers for young girls in low-income countries to engage in transactional sex.
Girls in Freetown also use transactional sex to buy fashionable clothes, good exam results, known locally as "sexually transmitted grades", and even staple foods, researchers found.
The girls often have different partners to meet different needs.
"One girl at school was in love with three boys. One of them did her (school) assignments, one would buy her clothes, and the other one bought her phone and other things like money. One man won't do," one girl told researchers.
There are different types of man. The 'old pa' can be over 50 years old, the 'big man' is 25 to 50 years old and then there are the young guys - those are the ones the girls actually love, the report said.
"Many girls consider going with old men much better as they pay more money and they will only ask for oral sex instead of intercourse, so there is no chance of getting sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant," Lai told Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Freetown.
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