'If I don't do this, my family may perish because we have no one to support us,' she said while seeking clients on Kimbuta Avenue - well-known for prostitution - with a cigarette in hand. 'I am fatherless, and I have an eight-year-old brother,' Naomie - whose name has been changed to protect her identity - said one evening this month in the Tshangu district of Kinshasa. The fallout from the coronavirus pandemic - from rising food prices to a curfew resulting in fewer clients for her mother -left the 15-year-old with no choice but to take to the streets. KINSHASA, March 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Naomie's mother asked the teenager to join her as a sex worker in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo last September, she knew it was a matter of survival for the family. * Authorities say lack resources to tackle underage sex work * Teenagers, street children forced into sex work to survive * Rising food prices, night-time curfew deepen hardship A rising number of girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo are turning to the sex trade as COVID-19 deepens desperation

For the republic fallout