REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
In Madagascar's capital my guide is taking me on a clandestine tour of some of the city's booming brothels.
RECEPTIONIST: This one is for two girls.
REPORTER: OK.
RECEPTIONIST: This is for one girl.
As you enter you're given a menu but what's on offer isn't likely to feature in any good food guide.
GUIDE (Translation): What if there are two men?
RECEPTIONIST (Translation): There will be four girls.
Prostitution is legal in Madagascar, but not for those under the age of 18. But here, no-one seems to care.
GUIDE (Translation): How many children are here?
GIRL (Translation): Three.
GUIDE (Translation): I would just like to know how much it is.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): If you are a foreigner arriving by yourself, the taxi driver who takes you to town will say “Do you want a young girl? A minor? A young virgin? A boy? How young would you like her to be?
In the 90s, Madagascar's beaches and laid-back lifestyle enticed planeloads of holidaying European families. Now many of the visitors are sex tourists, foreign men and women on the prowl.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): It is all organised at the hotel, with photos too, if you want. Once you are on the beach, say, the owner of the holiday house or brothel will contact you, or else it is the parents themselves, “I have a beautiful daughter.”
WARDA (Translation): My name is Warda, I am 14 years old. I don’t attend school now, I hang out at the beach where I look for men so I can earn money.
It's confronting to discover that many of Madagascar's child sex workers are encouraged by their parents. Soa and Warda are mother and daughter - both are sex workers.
SOA (Translation): My daughter was at school, I had no money and no job so she decided to become a prostitute. I finally decided not to stop her – her own mother. When I realised that our family was getting an income, many people criticised me, saying “How can you let your daughter work as a prostitute?”
When the neighbours gossip - Soa bites her tongue, she knows what her daughter does is shameful, but to puts food on the table.
SOA (Translation): When we have money we buy rice and other essential foods. My dream for the future is that my daughter succeeds. I pray for this every day that she will live abroad with a nice foreigner and have a wealthy life like foreigners do.
Daily flights from Europe bring sex tourists to Antananarivo, Madagascar's chaotic capital. And the locals know what they're after.
ALBERT (Translation): When it comes to finding women, foreigners are our real target here. We source the girls from local high schools.
For tourists with a taste for school girls, Albert can help. He's not yet 18 but he's a pimp, arranging lunch hour meetings with girls fresh out of the classroom.
ALBERT (Translation): We pick up the girls from the school, we send a message to the girls, we have lots of contacts in high schools. It’s easy to convince them when there is money involved.
NATHALIE (Translation): When I arrived here, my friend already worked as a prostitute, so I just did what she was doing. What choice did I have? No one would take care of me, I have nothing, so thankfully I have this.
Nathalie is just 11 but is already a veteran of Madagascar's sleazy sex trade. She lost her virginity to an elderly sex tourist for the equivalent of $21.
NATHALIE (Translation): I did not say a word because no one cares about me. It was painful, it hurt.
It's here on the idyllic beaches of Nosy Be, an island off Madagascar's north coast that the child sex trade is rampant.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): It is very important that everyone in Nosy Be starts talking openly about what foreigners are actually doing here.
Madame Florine is President of the Nosy Be Sex Workers collective. She has made herself unpopular by speaking out against child sex tourists.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): They don’t like foreigners bringing cameras here – like we are doing now. They are worried about criticism of Ambatoloaka, they are afraid tourists will stop coming and kill their trade.
It's no surprise that in the grubby entertainment quarter of Ambatoloaka Beach bar owners and their customer don’t want to be filmed, so I shot this video with a hidden camera. It was clear that at least half of the girls inside the bars were well under the age of consent.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): Underage kids are doing anything, whatever they want. I can see it. It is destroying the future of our youth - those who start doing it are followed by the younger ones.
Officially in Madagascar there is zero tolerance for sex tourists preying on children. Posters warn of harsh prison sentences for anyone caught engaging in sexual acts with minors. Hotels are obliged to report suspicious guests to the police, but the rules are easy to circumvent.
WARDA (Translation): If a man really wants me, he will go to any lengths to ensure no one checks my ID. They give bribes to make sure, they organise a room on the ground floor, not upstairs. The ground floor is the best, we can use the windows and walk through the bush so we can get away.
It's not just young girls who are caught up in Madagascar's sex tourism industry. Nor are the foreign predators all men. This is a trade that exploits both females and males.
ERIC (Translation): My name is Eric, I came from a family that experienced daily hardship, for example, we would get up at 5am to work in the fields, we had to go into the mud to pick the food from our fields. I escaped from this situation by doing the job that I am doing now.
Just 16, Eric has already worked as a prostitute for two years. His clients, both men and women, have a taste for young boys. Eric earns in a month as much as the average Madagascan family can earn in a year.
ERIC (Translation): From doing it, I have seen my life improve, it is normal for me. It’s not like before when I suffered a lot, there have been a lot of changes in my life.
Eric says the underage male prostitutes follow much the same routine as the females - they work the beaches but on weekends they concentrate on the bars.
ERIC (Translation): There is a special place for men and another for women - they are at the nightclubs- that is where we find them. I have a lot of friends, some of them live in town – they earn a lot. The youngest one I saw was about 13 or 14 years old.
Madagascar's female sex tourists have their own networks in place. They arrive with phone numbers to call.
ERIC (Translation): One friend will contact the others, he will say “I have some women who are looking.” Then a lot of my friends will go there. My friend will also contact me, he’ll say, “The women will come. Are you in? Let’s go.” Then he will take me there and we’ll approach them and go to their room.
POLICE (Translation): We are looking for the boss, we are doing ID checks. We are looking for underage customers.
In theory, Madagascar's authorities are trying to combat the child sex trade. I joined the local police as they made a patrol of the club area.
POLICE (Translation): Good evening miss, your ID please.
It's early in the evening and there are very few people in the bars.
POLICE (Translation): Are you minors? Do you have ID cards?
GIRLS (Translation): No, we’re not.
While their intentions are good, Madagascar's police force is starved of funds. Here on Nosy Be where they can't even afford to fill up their patrol cars with petrol, checks like this are performed only once a month.
POLICE (Translation): Here in Nosy Be, everything happens in back streets, not in public places. It is driven by poverty, sadly, parents actively encourage it.
With some parents pimping their own kids, prosecuting foreigners for sex crimes is difficult.
POLICE (Translation): Getting parents to cooperate is usually only when it suits them. When parents are getting money they don’t want the police, but when the money runs out – they come to see us, then it is usually too late because the foreigners have left.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): The police, the ministries of tourism, ministries handling child protection and regional populations, everyone closes their eyes.
Jeannoda Randimbiarison, a social worker for UNICEF says the Madagascan authorities lack the will to do what is necessary.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): There are protection networks in the public and private sectors, it’s just like a network. Because by not saying anything, by not denouncing perpetrators, you are protecting them, if you are not protecting the greater interests of the child, you are part of the network.
Ironically, failed by adults it's Madagascar's young kids themselves who are taking action. Eduardo and Ernest lead a group called the Child Protection Brigade and they uncover what the authorities fail to see.
EDUARDO (Translation): If it happens, we warn the police that we have seen foreigners with underage girls and the next step will be that they then alert local tourism officials.
Many sex tourists rent private houses in order to stay under the radar. But they don't escape the attention of the Child Protection Brigade.
EDUARDO (Translation): For example, this house, a foreigner lives in there, that is how he is able to see the women passing by on the street – so he can see which one he likes the look of. He sits on the first floor and watches women passing by, especially those who did not nab a man from the bars in Ambatoloaka.
In their village workshop Eduardo and Ernest devise strategies to keep young Madagascans out of the sex industry.
EDUARDO (Translation): One of the solutions we have to put into perspective, for kids, is education, so they will know – they have to learn so they will be aware.
By day the workshop is the headquarters for organising patrols and making contact with child sex workers.
EDUARDO (Translation): What else should we bring, Pascal? The reference sheet, if any kids feel unwell? If any young person has a concern, we will give out this reference sheet so they can take it to the doctor. Well… that’s all.
In one of the poorest countries on earth the relative prosperity enjoyed by child sex workers attracts others to a job that is short on glamour but well paid.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): Whatever the publicity or awareness campaigns, if the law is not enforced in Madagascar, if there is no enforcement, it will all continue. It is like we are conducting a genocide of our Malagasy children.
NATHALIE (Translation): What they are doing with us underage kids is bad, but what can be done? It’s circumstances like mine that tempt them. Some of them are nice, others are bad. It is my dream to study, if I finish high school, I will go to university and become an ambassador or study law.
ANJALI RAO: An extremely harrowing story. Of course the big question: Will the authorities in Madagascar ever stamp out the trade? A very difficult subject indeed. Follow #DatelineSBS on Twitter to find out more about Nick's story but have your say on any of tonight's reports.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
ALLAN HOGAN
Fixer
FANJA SAHOLIARISOA
Editor
MICAH MGGOWN
Translations/Subtitling
TSIRY RANDRIAMANANSTOA
STELLA COLLET
MELISSA MCMAHON
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN
In Madagascar's capital my guide is taking me on a clandestine tour of some of the city's booming brothels.
RECEPTIONIST: This one is for two girls.
REPORTER: OK.
RECEPTIONIST: This is for one girl.
As you enter you're given a menu but what's on offer isn't likely to feature in any good food guide.
GUIDE (Translation): What if there are two men?
RECEPTIONIST (Translation): There will be four girls.
Prostitution is legal in Madagascar, but not for those under the age of 18. But here, no-one seems to care.
GUIDE (Translation): How many children are here?
GIRL (Translation): Three.
GUIDE (Translation): I would just like to know how much it is.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): If you are a foreigner arriving by yourself, the taxi driver who takes you to town will say “Do you want a young girl? A minor? A young virgin? A boy? How young would you like her to be?
In the 90s, Madagascar's beaches and laid-back lifestyle enticed planeloads of holidaying European families. Now many of the visitors are sex tourists, foreign men and women on the prowl.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): It is all organised at the hotel, with photos too, if you want. Once you are on the beach, say, the owner of the holiday house or brothel will contact you, or else it is the parents themselves, “I have a beautiful daughter.”
WARDA (Translation): My name is Warda, I am 14 years old. I don’t attend school now, I hang out at the beach where I look for men so I can earn money.
It's confronting to discover that many of Madagascar's child sex workers are encouraged by their parents. Soa and Warda are mother and daughter - both are sex workers.
SOA (Translation): My daughter was at school, I had no money and no job so she decided to become a prostitute. I finally decided not to stop her – her own mother. When I realised that our family was getting an income, many people criticised me, saying “How can you let your daughter work as a prostitute?”
When the neighbours gossip - Soa bites her tongue, she knows what her daughter does is shameful, but to puts food on the table.
SOA (Translation): When we have money we buy rice and other essential foods. My dream for the future is that my daughter succeeds. I pray for this every day that she will live abroad with a nice foreigner and have a wealthy life like foreigners do.
Daily flights from Europe bring sex tourists to Antananarivo, Madagascar's chaotic capital. And the locals know what they're after.
ALBERT (Translation): When it comes to finding women, foreigners are our real target here. We source the girls from local high schools.
For tourists with a taste for school girls, Albert can help. He's not yet 18 but he's a pimp, arranging lunch hour meetings with girls fresh out of the classroom.
ALBERT (Translation): We pick up the girls from the school, we send a message to the girls, we have lots of contacts in high schools. It’s easy to convince them when there is money involved.
NATHALIE (Translation): When I arrived here, my friend already worked as a prostitute, so I just did what she was doing. What choice did I have? No one would take care of me, I have nothing, so thankfully I have this.
Nathalie is just 11 but is already a veteran of Madagascar's sleazy sex trade. She lost her virginity to an elderly sex tourist for the equivalent of $21.
NATHALIE (Translation): I did not say a word because no one cares about me. It was painful, it hurt.
It's here on the idyllic beaches of Nosy Be, an island off Madagascar's north coast that the child sex trade is rampant.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): It is very important that everyone in Nosy Be starts talking openly about what foreigners are actually doing here.
Madame Florine is President of the Nosy Be Sex Workers collective. She has made herself unpopular by speaking out against child sex tourists.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): They don’t like foreigners bringing cameras here – like we are doing now. They are worried about criticism of Ambatoloaka, they are afraid tourists will stop coming and kill their trade.
It's no surprise that in the grubby entertainment quarter of Ambatoloaka Beach bar owners and their customer don’t want to be filmed, so I shot this video with a hidden camera. It was clear that at least half of the girls inside the bars were well under the age of consent.
MADAME FLORINE (Translation): Underage kids are doing anything, whatever they want. I can see it. It is destroying the future of our youth - those who start doing it are followed by the younger ones.
Officially in Madagascar there is zero tolerance for sex tourists preying on children. Posters warn of harsh prison sentences for anyone caught engaging in sexual acts with minors. Hotels are obliged to report suspicious guests to the police, but the rules are easy to circumvent.
WARDA (Translation): If a man really wants me, he will go to any lengths to ensure no one checks my ID. They give bribes to make sure, they organise a room on the ground floor, not upstairs. The ground floor is the best, we can use the windows and walk through the bush so we can get away.
It's not just young girls who are caught up in Madagascar's sex tourism industry. Nor are the foreign predators all men. This is a trade that exploits both females and males.
ERIC (Translation): My name is Eric, I came from a family that experienced daily hardship, for example, we would get up at 5am to work in the fields, we had to go into the mud to pick the food from our fields. I escaped from this situation by doing the job that I am doing now.
Just 16, Eric has already worked as a prostitute for two years. His clients, both men and women, have a taste for young boys. Eric earns in a month as much as the average Madagascan family can earn in a year.
ERIC (Translation): From doing it, I have seen my life improve, it is normal for me. It’s not like before when I suffered a lot, there have been a lot of changes in my life.
Eric says the underage male prostitutes follow much the same routine as the females - they work the beaches but on weekends they concentrate on the bars.
ERIC (Translation): There is a special place for men and another for women - they are at the nightclubs- that is where we find them. I have a lot of friends, some of them live in town – they earn a lot. The youngest one I saw was about 13 or 14 years old.
Madagascar's female sex tourists have their own networks in place. They arrive with phone numbers to call.
ERIC (Translation): One friend will contact the others, he will say “I have some women who are looking.” Then a lot of my friends will go there. My friend will also contact me, he’ll say, “The women will come. Are you in? Let’s go.” Then he will take me there and we’ll approach them and go to their room.
POLICE (Translation): We are looking for the boss, we are doing ID checks. We are looking for underage customers.
In theory, Madagascar's authorities are trying to combat the child sex trade. I joined the local police as they made a patrol of the club area.
POLICE (Translation): Good evening miss, your ID please.
It's early in the evening and there are very few people in the bars.
POLICE (Translation): Are you minors? Do you have ID cards?
GIRLS (Translation): No, we’re not.
While their intentions are good, Madagascar's police force is starved of funds. Here on Nosy Be where they can't even afford to fill up their patrol cars with petrol, checks like this are performed only once a month.
POLICE (Translation): Here in Nosy Be, everything happens in back streets, not in public places. It is driven by poverty, sadly, parents actively encourage it.
With some parents pimping their own kids, prosecuting foreigners for sex crimes is difficult.
POLICE (Translation): Getting parents to cooperate is usually only when it suits them. When parents are getting money they don’t want the police, but when the money runs out – they come to see us, then it is usually too late because the foreigners have left.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): The police, the ministries of tourism, ministries handling child protection and regional populations, everyone closes their eyes.
Jeannoda Randimbiarison, a social worker for UNICEF says the Madagascan authorities lack the will to do what is necessary.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): There are protection networks in the public and private sectors, it’s just like a network. Because by not saying anything, by not denouncing perpetrators, you are protecting them, if you are not protecting the greater interests of the child, you are part of the network.
Ironically, failed by adults it's Madagascar's young kids themselves who are taking action. Eduardo and Ernest lead a group called the Child Protection Brigade and they uncover what the authorities fail to see.
EDUARDO (Translation): If it happens, we warn the police that we have seen foreigners with underage girls and the next step will be that they then alert local tourism officials.
Many sex tourists rent private houses in order to stay under the radar. But they don't escape the attention of the Child Protection Brigade.
EDUARDO (Translation): For example, this house, a foreigner lives in there, that is how he is able to see the women passing by on the street – so he can see which one he likes the look of. He sits on the first floor and watches women passing by, especially those who did not nab a man from the bars in Ambatoloaka.
In their village workshop Eduardo and Ernest devise strategies to keep young Madagascans out of the sex industry.
EDUARDO (Translation): One of the solutions we have to put into perspective, for kids, is education, so they will know – they have to learn so they will be aware.
By day the workshop is the headquarters for organising patrols and making contact with child sex workers.
EDUARDO (Translation): What else should we bring, Pascal? The reference sheet, if any kids feel unwell? If any young person has a concern, we will give out this reference sheet so they can take it to the doctor. Well… that’s all.
In one of the poorest countries on earth the relative prosperity enjoyed by child sex workers attracts others to a job that is short on glamour but well paid.
JEANNODA RANDIMBIARISON (Translation): Whatever the publicity or awareness campaigns, if the law is not enforced in Madagascar, if there is no enforcement, it will all continue. It is like we are conducting a genocide of our Malagasy children.
NATHALIE (Translation): What they are doing with us underage kids is bad, but what can be done? It’s circumstances like mine that tempt them. Some of them are nice, others are bad. It is my dream to study, if I finish high school, I will go to university and become an ambassador or study law.
ANJALI RAO: An extremely harrowing story. Of course the big question: Will the authorities in Madagascar ever stamp out the trade? A very difficult subject indeed. Follow #DatelineSBS on Twitter to find out more about Nick's story but have your say on any of tonight's reports.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
ALLAN HOGAN
Fixer
FANJA SAHOLIARISOA
Editor
MICAH MGGOWN
Translations/Subtitling
TSIRY RANDRIAMANANSTOA
STELLA COLLET
MELISSA MCMAHON
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN