Angels of Death: A peep into a brothel in Ijora, Lagos

In Ijora Badia, a Lagos slump, sex workers as young as 14, trying to earn money to survive, entertain around five clients a day. Inside the squalid brothels, tens of thousands of HIV-positive prostitutes are fuelling an AIDS epidemic claiming 10 million lives a year. Series of photographs shows sex workers in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, living in squalid conditions. According to a recent research study, nearly a quarter of prostitutes in Nigeria have HIV, as 40% of men who patronizes them no longer use condom for safe sex. Therefore there is an estimated 1.2 million people in Lagos living with HIV.

A study in 2013 found that nearly a quarter of Nigerian sex workers have HIV.

The pictures were taken in a Lagos slum, where girls as young as 14 entertain up to five clients per day.

The pictures were taken by photographer Ton Koene in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city

A woman stands next to an advert encouraging condom use, in a country where researchers found more needs to be done to change attitudes toward safe sex.

The pictures were taken by photographer Ton Koeneon in a Lagos slum named Badia.

There are currently an estimated 1.2million people in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, living with HIV.

He said his driver had quipped: ‘If you arrive by car, you can smell the HIV virus outside.’

Studies have raised concerns over attitudes toward condom use in Nigeria

A woman in the Badia slum in Lagos, where hundreds of women work in the sex trade in order to make ends meet Sex workers often entertain up to five clients per day in the impoverished slums in Lagos