Aid worker's blog: Clarisse's story

Aid worker's blog: Clarisse's story

Choice is a luxury not many can afford in eastern Congo. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the very few options open to children trapped by poverty and conflict here.

Clarisse* is 11 years old and she sells herself to men for sex for less than a dollar.

“Life is very hard,” she tells me. “I have to sleep with a grown-up man almost every day.”

Parents killed

Clarisse is an orphan. Her parents were killed by rebels during the Second Congo War, which devastated the region between 1998 and 2003. When they were shot, she ran with neighbours to the nearest town. After a while, the woman looking after her married and left Clarisse on the street to fend for herself.

“A woman found me and said, ‘I like you, come to my house and I will look after you. You have to survive, so have sex with men and get money for food’,” she says.

There are three other girls working at the bar where Clarisse helps her “Mama” sell beer and cigarettes. In Beni town, where I met Clarisse, there are more than 500 child sex workers like her.

Child Parliament

I know this because last year a Child Parliament carried out a survey. The group, formed for and by local youngsters, promotes the rights of children, seeking justice for their peers and lobbying authorities to act when rights are violated. A group from the Parliament went from bar to bar, assessing the true scale of the child sex industry in their community.

The head of the Child Parliament’s Investigations Commission tells me they are planning to conduct another survey soon, as one year on they suspect an increase in the number of girls forced to sell sex in order to survive.

Freda, Irene and Yvonne

Their theory is confirmed when I meet Freda, Irene and Yvonne, all who have moved into bars in the past two months.

Freda came to Beni one month ago after her father died and her mother turned to alcohol. She knew a woman from her village who sells beer in the town. Freda lives with the woman and three other girls.

“I don’t know how many men I have been with since I arrived here,” she said. “When others come to jeer, part of my heart says ‘leave this life’, but the other part of my heart answers, ‘what else can I do?’ So I stay.”

All the girls tell me they have no other alternative. Primary school is not free and they have no money for food, let alone an education. They eat one meal a day, although the afternoon I meet them they were looking for customers before they can buy anything to eat.

"No choice"

Fourteen-year-old Yvonne is also an orphan.

“We have to make money to survive,” she tells me.

“Condom, no condom, no matter – our target is money. HIV is there but what can we do?

“The men sometimes say, ‘I need sex’, and I say ‘no, not today’. Then he can tear his money in half and you have no choice but to go with him or he will beat you. Other times, at their home, they can close the door and force you to have sex.”

Clarisse tells me she always tries to use a condom, which she buys with the small amount of money she earns. But in the end, it’s the customer who decides.

“The first man I slept with didn’t use a condom,” she says.

As she talks her small hands play with the bracelet on her arm, winding the beads round and round her fragile wrist. Watching her, I’m convinced there must be a way for her to break out of the cycle of exploitation, which is a direct result of war.

World Vision helping

World Vision is working with the Child Parliament to try to expand the choices of these four girls, and others.

“The Child Parliament visits me and tells me about my rights,” Freda says.

“They talk to me about abuse and possible reunification with my mother. It gives me hope and they have invited me to be part of the Parliament and to learn skills.”

She smiles then and with that, her future has more possibilities – if not yet, then soon.

Anna Ridout works for World Vision in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

*All names have been changed