Hundreds of youths try to escape poverty by going into Africa's porn industry. Few realize how difficult and unsafe it can be.
By: Habibou Bangré
"I have been dreaming of becoming a porn actor since a very young age. I live in the Ivory Coast and I am looking for a producer or a director to sign a contract and to be in a movie ... I am relying on you to make my dream come true". This is the advertisement that André (not his real name), a 21-year-old, posted on the Internet with his email address and cell phone numbers. This computer science student in Grand-Bassam -- a town some 25 miles from Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast -- is not unusual in Africa. Hundreds of young men and women in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere are all trying to join the pornographic-film industry in Africa or abroad...[continued]
