Freetown, Sierra Leone, Apr 17, 2018 / 15:23 pm
In Sierra Leone, Salesian missionaries are working to extract girls working as prostitutes from their lifestyle, providing them with shelter and helping them to be reunited with family members or placed in adoptive homes.
In 2016, Salesian missionaries working in Freetown realized there was a large number of girls who were selling their bodies to get food.
"The youngest was 9 years old, and the oldest 17. Then the idea came up of creating a shelter as an alternative environment for them to help them get out of prostitution. They sell their bodies to earn $1.80 to $2.50 a day to pay for school because a lot of them go to school just like any other child," Fr. Jorge Mario Crisafulli explained.
The Salesian priest is the director of their Don Bosco Fambul Center for the Protection of Minors. He recently visited several European cities to present "Love," a short Spanish language documentary which shows the suffering of girls forced to prostitute themselves and who are rescued from the streets.