[7] Since the end of the ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone, there has been an increase in child prostitution, especially among children who are struggling to survive.
[9] Sierra Leone is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking.
Victims originate largely from rural provinces and are recruited to urban and mining centers for exploitation in sex trafficking.
Traffickers have exploited boys and girls from Sierra Leone to reportedly work as “cultural dancers”—and possibly also for sexual exploitation—in The Gambia.
Sierra Leonean adults voluntarily migrate to other West African countries, including Mauritania and Guinea, as well as to the Middle East and Europe, where some are subjected to forced prostitution.