Oringinally from Ubari city, AM went to Sabha after losing her father and two brothers in the skirmishes between the Tibo and Tawareq tribes.

Shortly after arriving in Sabha— a hub for Sub-Saharan Africans hoping to migrate to Europe— AM received money for having sexual intercourse with a wealthy man. The man took her to one of the brothels he frequented and promised AM that she would be fine there, and that she would be privileged because she was “white” and “better looking” than the other women who worked there.

Oringinally from Ubari city, AM went to Sabha after losing her father and two brothers in the skirmishes between the Tibo and Tawareq tribes.

Shortly after arriving in Sabha— a hub for Sub-Saharan Africans hoping to migrate to Europe— AM received money for having sexual intercourse with a wealthy man. The man took her to one of the brothels he frequented and promised AM that she would be fine there, and that she would be privileged because she was “white” and “better looking” than the other women who worked there.

AM accepted the offer and thought that it would be a temporary job that would provide her with enough money to go back to her previous life. “It was worthwhile thinking about it,” said AM, especially since she had no one left from her family apart from her mother, and because she had no other qualifications.

Miriam Trauly AM’s 21-year-old colleague from Niger said: “We are living a tragedy we never expected.” Miriam has been a sex worker in Sabha for three years, and she is one of the most valued workers in the 24/7 brothel where the two women work.

Like the others, Miriam thought that this period would be a bridge to another life, since she was planning on continuing her trip to Europe. However, Miriam was grounded there since the brothel keeper — the same man who smuggled her out of her country – kept her there, and promised that he was looking for an opportunity to send her safely to the coast in the north. He told her to stay and work in the brothel he opened and tempted her with money so she could save for a short period of time.

Beating and torture

Before travelling to Libya, Miriam also worked as a prostitute in Niger and travelled to Libya with the money she made there. “There,” she says, “I was free. The brothel owner did not control me.”

According to Miriam, women in the brothel endured beatings and verbal abuse from the boss who forces them to have sex with the visitors regardless of how many there were. She said the boss once forced her to have sex with seven men in a row, which had severe effects on her health.

Miriam has also dealt with customers she called “psychopaths”. Once, a client tortured her for an entire night. “He came to the boss with a large amount of money in order to take me with him to his house” she said. “At the beginning he was gentle and he treated me well, but as soon as we reached his house, he began beating me and abusing me verbally. Then he tore off my clothes and started beating me with an electric cable. I did not understand what he wanted or why he was treating me with such violence. There was no one to help me and I could not run away. He tortured me the whole night until he was too tired to continue and fell asleep before dawn.”

Lucrative trade

Al-Mariami A.A, the brothel’s owner was once a smuggler and chose the “most beautiful migrant girls” and took them to his brothel for a promise to transport them to the north for free after they had spent “enough” time there.

Al-Mariami tried to give his work a sense of professionalism when he claimed that he ran medical checks on his workers to make sure they were healthy and disease-free. However, most of his workers are illegal immigrants without identification documents.

Sex for ten dinars

In another brothel, Ariama, from Guinea Bissau, told Correspondents that the owner she works for is a gentle person who provides his workers with food and clothing. Although, her aim is to save money, Ariama does not know that the brothel owner takes 40 Dinars (about US $28) from every client, according to our information, while she only receives 10 Dinars (about US $7) Dinars from the transaction.

Her pay may go up to 20 Dinars if she agrees to go home with the client, but she refuses as there are many cases where girls were killed by their clients once they left the brothel.

Most of the brothel workers who spoke to Correspondents suffered difficult economic circumstances in the past and they wanted to reach Europe no matter the price. Poverty, disease, and low living standards landed them in the Sabha brothels.

I pay them to give me pleasure

Outside of the brothel, dozens of expensive cars with tinted windows were parked outside, ready to take a group of women to spend the night in a ranch outside the city.

In the client cue, 43-year-old M.A told Correspondents that he always frequented the “houses of happiness” as he described them. M.A is not keen on listening to the stories of the girls he has sex with, he said: “I pay them to make me happy and I do not want to listen to their sad stories. I find it strange that these girls have the ability to give happiness while living such tragedies.”

 We do not have solutions

General officer Abu Bakr Shaifa, who works in the city’s security apparatus said that brothels are spreading in the areas of Abdulkafi, Al-Manshia, Al-Mahdia and Al-Tiouri neighbourhood.

Sub-Saharan African women are the backbone of this trade, according to Shaifa, alongside a number of Libyan girls. Shaifa also claimed that since the brothels were so lucrative, brother owners could afford to hire armed groups to protect their trade. Shaifa explained that the state could not fight these brothels, especially since most of them are protected by the tribes of the owners.

At Sabha’s Center for Communicable and Endemic Diseases Mohammad Al-Bousefi, told Correspondents that HIV cases have been recorded among the young men in Sabha but said there were no accurate HIV statistics in Sabha so far. However, the Center provides medical check-ups for non-Libyans as well, in order to encourage sex workers to get exams, according to Al-Bousefi.

Women like Miriam hope that they can one day put prostitution and Sabha behind them and finally reach Europe. “I want to tell my mother that I am fine and that I have achieved my goal and made it Europe,” said Miriam. “She does not know what is happening to me here and I do not want her to know. So much sorrow lays in Sabha.”

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