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With the end of the health blockade, the Nosy Be archipelago is facing the return of western tourists attracted by prostitution, especially minors. An activity barely controlled by the state and often seen as the only solution by families mired in poverty.
For more than two years, the Nosy Be archipelago northwest of Madagascar was “cut off from the world”. “No cruise ships, no planes,” sighs Elisabetta Gravellino, an Italian bed-and-breakfast owner and tourist board president. Malagasy authorities wanted to save the country’s first tourist destination from Covid. In 2019, Nosy Be concentrated more than half of foreign tourists, 200,000 against 350,000 for all of Madagascar. The sanitary blockade has just ended and the flood of tourists is rising again, with its anything but rosy face: prostitution and the sexual exploitation of minors. The pearl of the Indian Ocean with 321 km² and around 50,000 inhabitants is indeed a stronghold of sex tourism. According to the Vonjy Centre, which helps child victims of sexual violence, 40% of young girls in Nosy Be have received their “first report in prostitution”. According to a 2019 survey by the South African University of Kwazulu-Natal on the subject of “transactional sex”, the figure is even 45%.
During the Covid, Héva (1), 23, pigtails tied in a bun, had to adapt. “I didn’t have a job anymore. So I went to Mada,” says the man who sells pareos and offers “massages” to tourists on the beach at Ambatoloaka, the island’s seaside resort. Madagascar is two hours away by motorboat. There, Héva sweated blood and water to use a “knife” – a machete – to cut down trees that served as scaffolding…