Women displaced by terrorism in Cabo Delgado province sell sex to survive, reveals the Center for Public Integrity (CIP). These are women who have left shelters and others who live in rented houses. The prices vary between 20 and 500 meticais.

The CIP points out that the armed conflicts in the province have displaced around one million people, more than 50% of whom are women and girls.

"The scarcity of means of subsistence, coupled with the difficulties of economic integration in the host areas, has forced displaced women and girls to resort to selling sex as a means of survival," the report reads. CIP study.

The work covered the districts of Pemba, Metuge, Montepuez and Chiúre, where there are approximately 50% of the province's internally displaced people. The NGO says that the practice is due to the urgency of meeting basic survival needs.

The activity is most visible in the urban centers or headquarters towns of the host districts, areas where the activity is relatively more profitable. The prices charged vary between 20 and 500 meticais. And in accommodation centers, which are far from urban areas, the price is no more than 100 meticais. "It depends on the client's financial capacity or good will."

"Generally, the money earned from prostitution is used to meet their most immediate needs, such as buying food and personal hygiene products," for example, buying a kilogram of flour or soap, writes CIP.

The women who have chosen to sell sex are aged between 20 and 40, usually widows or those whose husbands have been kidnapped by terrorists. And the girls are aged between 15 and 19, "who because of the conflict have been forced to take responsibility for themselves and their younger relatives at an early age". Girls are the preferred group for those seeking sexual satisfaction.

Related to the sale of sex are the growing number of diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, in the province. "Until 2020, the health unit diagnosed 3 cases of HIV per month in displaced women. In 2022 the number rose to 7 cases per month, an increase of over 50%," says CIP.

This group of people has suffered sexual violence (exploitation and prostitution) since the beginning of the terrorist attacks. Some women have been kidnapped as sex slaves and others sold as prostitutes on the global human trafficking market.