A series of photographs taken in the slums of Lagos shows the faces of sex workers living in squalid conditions. And the images have a tragic undercurrent, with tens of thousands of people in the sex trade diagnosed with HIV each year, and millions dying from AIDS across Nigeria. A survey conducted last year has also highlighted that attitudes towards condom use is helping the spread of the condition, and research suggests that nearly a quarter of Nigerian sex workers have HIV.
A study in found that nearly a quarter of Nigerian sex workers have HIV. The pictures were taken in a Lagos slum, where girls as young as 14 entertain up to five clients per day.
The pictures were taken by photographer Ton Koene in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. A woman stands next to an advert encouraging condom use, in a country where researchers found more needs to be done to change attitudes toward safe sex.
The pictures were taken by photographer Ton Koeneon in a Lagos slum named Badia. There are currently an estimated 1. He said his driver had quipped: 'If you arrive by car, you can smell the HIV virus outside. A man speaks to a woman in the Badia slum in Lagos, where hundreds of women work in the sex trade in order to survive. A woman in the Badia slum in Lagos, where hundreds of women work in the sex trade in order to make ends meet. Sex workers often entertain up to five clients per day in the impoverished slums in Lagos.
In Badia, sex workers as young as 14, trying to earn money to survive, entertain around five clients a day. Last year a study by the Iranian Journal of Public Health noted that the country has a 4. Thanks to investment and education, the study found, the rate had fallen from five per cent in the early s, but it said there is still some way to go.
