MONROVIA – By eight o’clock on most evenings, the young women have already taken their places. Near an unfinished building in the VOA community of Brewerville City, outside Monrovia, they stand in the spots they know are best for catching the attention of passing men. They have a name for those men: “customers.” They have a name, too, for what they do. They call it “hustling.”
By Obediah Johnson
The word sounds like ambition. In this place it means survival. The young women are mostly between 18 and 24 years old, although teenagers are among them. They sell sex for sums so small that they would barely cover a snack in some parts of the world, and they do it night after night, driven by poverty, grief and, for some, the pull of drug addiction.
Their faces, observers say, show frustration, anger and despair. Behind those expressions lie stories of lost parents, interrupted schooling and a country where economic hardship continues to squeeze families who had little to begin with.
A Night That Begins at Eight
Rita, who asked that her real name not be used, is one of the regulars. She is 18 years old. She usually arrives at the site by 8 p.m. and does not leave until between 3 and 4 a.m. the next morning. Hers is a night shift in the most literal sense, and it is one she has worked for two years. She began selling sex at 16. Before then, she earned a living selling auction goods, the second-hand items traded in markets across Liberia. Then her mother died. With her mother gone, Rita says, nobody was left to take care of her.
“I am here to hustle because I was living with my mother, but she passed away. I don’t have anyone to take care of me, so I came on the road to hustle with my friends on the street. I used to sell auction goods before. I am doing this to support myself,” she said in an interview with FrontPage Africa in Brewerville City on Sunday, October 19.
Her explanation is plain, almost matter-of-fact. There is no suggestion that she chose this life over a better one. In her telling, the road simply replaced the family that had been taken from her, and her friends on the street showed her how to survive on it.
The Arithmetic of Survival
The money is meagre. Rita charges between L$200, which is about US$1, and L$300 for one round of sex. On a typical night, she sleeps with between three and five men. “Sometimes I make L$2,000 (US$11.7) or L$3,000 (US$17.6). I sleep with between three to five men at night. Some men who have feelings for us can give us L$400 (US$2) or L$600 (US$3),” she said.
Consider what these figures mean. A night of work that stretches for seven or eight hours, in the open air and among strangers, produces an income of roughly twelve to eighteen United States dollars at best. Some of the men pay a little more because, in her words, they “have feelings” for the girls. Most do not.
For Rita, that money must stretch across food, shelter, and every other need that comes with living alone. There is nothing in these numbers that suggests savings, and nothing that suggests a way out. Each night’s earnings are spent on the next day’s survival, and the cycle begins again at dusk.
When Drugs Set the Price
For others at the site, poverty is only half of the story. The other half is addiction. Miatta, also not her real name, is 22 years old and a junior high school dropout. She has spent nearly four years on the street, selling sex to feed a drug habit. According to her account, it was her sexual partner who introduced her to drugs several years ago. Today she sells sex to pay for the drugs and to cover a few basic needs.
“I am hustling here in the night. Sometimes when business is on our side, I make L$2,500 (US$14.7) or L$2,000 (US$11.7); sometimes when the business is rough, I make L$1,000 (US$5.8). Sometimes I sleep with about eight to 10 men. I use the money I make to smoke drugs,” she said.
The contrast with Rita’s account is striking. Where Rita speaks of three to five men a night, Miatta speaks of as many as eight to ten. Her earnings on a rough night are less than six United States dollars. The need to find enough money to satisfy her habit pushes her toward more encounters, and more encounters mean more exposure to danger and disease.
Her story shows why the crisis cannot be explained by poverty alone. Hardship pushes young women onto the street, and drugs keep them there. Each problem feeds the other, and breaking the cycle will require more than any single intervention can offer.
Pain Behind the Hustle
The dangers do not end with poverty and addiction. Many of those engaged in commercial sex in Liberia have suffered severe assaults and attacks, including from first-time customers and from disadvantaged youths who see them as easy targets.
The injuries that can be seen are only part of the harm. The scars carried in the heart, according to the account, are heavier than the ones on the body. The young women are sexually abused and assaulted, and the money they have earned is taken away from them by their attackers.
Miatta described how it can happen. “Some of them can even beat us; they can carry us behind here (pointing at the back of the unfinished building), have sex with us, take advantage of us (because of our look and habit) and take the money from us,” she said.
Her words capture a double injury. The attackers take the bodies of these young women and then take their pay as well. Those who work at night and use drugs are especially exposed, because the very qualities that mark them out also make it easy for others to dismiss them. They carry out their work in the shadows, and the shadows protect those who prey on them.
Sick, but Staying Out
The health risks are as serious as the physical dangers. The young women say they understand the risks of what they do for a living. They are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases because their encounters involve unprotected sex. They are also exposed to chronic tuberculosis, colds, and other illnesses because they remain outside through the night and the early hours of the morning.
Staying home is rarely an option. “Sometimes we get sick because whether rain or shine, we have to come hustle. We sometimes buy antibiotics when we feel funny in our bodies; but we don’t really go to the hospital or clinic because we don’t have plenty money,” said another young woman who preferred not to be named.
Her account describes a quiet gap in the health system. When something feels wrong, she and her friends buy antibiotics themselves instead of seeking a diagnosis. A clinic visit costs money they would rather spend on food or on a day’s survival. Illness becomes one more problem to be managed alone, and an infection that might have been treated early is left to continue.
A Troubling Sign
The condition of these young women reflects more than individual misfortune. It points to a wider pattern of rising poverty, limited opportunities and growing substance abuse across Liberia. It also raises serious concerns about the vulnerability of girls and about the need for effective social protection, rehabilitation and economic empowerment programs.
The young women themselves have an answer to what they need. They called on the government to provide social and economic opportunities that would help them return to society. They made specific reference to empowerment through vocational and technical skills training.
It is a practical request, not a vague appeal. Skills training offers the one thing that the roadside cannot: a trade that can earn a living without the daily risks of violence, disease, and exploitation. For women who say they have no one to take care of them, the chance to learn a skill may be the difference between survival and a future.
What the Research Says
The accounts from Brewerville fit a larger body of evidence. Several local and international reports, including those from the United Nations, link transactional sex in Liberia to poverty, drug addiction, and the sexual exploitation of young girls.
A United Nations report titled Transactional Sex and Sexual Exploitation in Liberia, published in April 2025, documented concerns about commercial and transactional sex in the country, particularly in Monrovia and in border areas. It found that economically disadvantaged women and girls face increased risks of sexual exploitation, especially in mining and rubber plantation concession areas.
It added that commercial and transactional sex reportedly occurs around major transportation centers and entertainment districts. Sex workers, it said, face health risks, exploitation, discrimination and exclusion from some social and healthcare services.
A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), titled “A Teenage Girl Who Turned to Transactional Sex to Survive,” gave a firsthand account from West Point, Monrovia. It profiled a girl called Mercy, who was 17 at the time of publication. She said that she and her family were forced out of her father’s home when she was 13. While her mother worked to support the family, Mercy began exchanging sex for money to buy food.
The same report described the broader problems facing adolescents in West Point, including poverty, limited educational opportunities, and inadequate access to basic social services. It also discussed how financial hardship can push young people toward activities that provide immediate income but expose them to additional risks.
A 2025 report by the United States Department of State on human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Liberia offered an international perspective. It detailed how women and girls from impoverished rural communities remain vulnerable to trafficking, and how traffickers sometimes promise young women better opportunities in urban areas before sexually exploiting and abusing them.
Read together, these reports and the voices at the roadside tell the same story. Whether in a Monrovia slum, a mining area or a roadside community in Brewerville, poverty and a lack of options leave girls and young women open to exploitation.
Plans on Paper
The government has not ignored the issue entirely. In March this year, it launched the Third National Action Plan Against Human Trafficking, which covers the period from 2025 to 2029. Among other aims, the plan is intended to prevent the recruitment or involvement of women in commercial sexual exploitation.
In December last year, the government launched its National Anti-Drug Action Plan for 2025 to 2030. Within that plan, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection acknowledges the relationship between drug dependency, commercial sex and the vulnerability of women and children. The plan points out that some women are driven into commercial sex work to support their drug habits. It also highlights the effects of substance abuse on children, including neglect, exposure to violence and loss of educational opportunities.
The Ministry of Health has launched Liberia’s National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Nutrition Strategy for 2026 to 2031. The strategy seeks to improve adolescents’ access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, nutrition services and relevant information, while addressing the social and behavioural barriers that affect young people.
In October this year, the government launched a Five-Year Strategic Plan for Women and Children, estimated at approximately US$58.667 million. The plan is meant to strengthen institutional performance, improve service delivery, promote gender equality and enhance protection for children and vulnerable populations. Child and social protection, the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, and services for vulnerable groups are among its priorities. It also aims to address the situation of girls vulnerable to sexual exploitation, particularly where families struggle to provide food, education, and housing.
More Than Launches
Yet the stakeholders who follow these issues are not satisfied. Despite the growing involvement of young girls in transactional sex, they argue, the government’s efforts have been scanty. In their view, the launch of one plan after another is not enough to reduce the problem.
They want the government to go beyond announcements and address the conditions that push girls onto the street. These include growing economic hardship, drug abuse and dependency among young people, limited educational opportunities, and the sexual exploitation that continues to drive women and girls to exchange sex for money, favors, or other necessities.
The distance between a policy document and a roadside in Brewerville is considerable. A plan can be launched in a single day, but its effects depend on funding, staff and sustained follow-through. The young women who stand near the unfinished building each night are the measure of whether those plans work. If skills training, addiction treatment and affordable healthcare reach them, the plans will have meant something. If they do not, the documents will have changed little.
Before Dawn
When Rita finally leaves the site between 3 and 4 a.m., the night’s work is done, but nothing has been resolved. She has earned a few thousand Liberian dollars, enough perhaps for the next day’s food. She has also faced the risks that come with the road: the possibility of violence, the exposure to illness, and the knowledge that tomorrow the cycle will begin again.
Her story and Miatta’s are different in detail. One is an orphan trying to support herself, and the other is a young woman caught in addiction. Yet they share a common wish, which is to be given something better than the road. Skills, support and a chance to rejoin society are not luxuries to them. They are the difference between surviving the night and building a life.
The question that Brewerville poses to the country is a plain one. Plans, strategies and action programmes have been launched in the thousands of words that fill government documents. The young women of the unfinished building are waiting to find out whether any of those words will reach them.