A considerable number of women and girls, who left their areas of origin due to the attacks by insurgents in Cabo Delgado Province, are resorting to selling sex as a form of survival. In addition, others are lured into having sex in exchange for food and other livelihoods, a phenomenon which, despite complaints from civil society and international organisations, still persists in several accommodation centres for displaced persons. The exclusion of displaced people from access to food assistance, the difficulties of economic integration in the reception areas, combined with the scarcity of means to meet their most basic needs, push displaced women into an underworld full of risks: that of sex for survival. This article shows the scope of one of the less known faces of the war in Cabo Delgado: the prostitution and sexual exploitation of displaced women and girls.
