Women of Virtue: From child trafficking victim to electrician

 

It's challenging for a girl to pursue a career as an electrician in Uganda. But it's even harder if she's also leaving behind seven years spent as a victim of child sex trafficking.

That was the situation Jacqueline, now 18, had found herself in. The youngest girl she worked alongside was just nine, Jacqueline says. "They wanted girls who were young as their bodies were free from diseases such as HIV."

Jacqueline found she couldn't rely on her parents for support. In the village of Kyagwe, she was living with a step mother who would chase her out of the house in the absence of her father, she tells CNN. "My biological mother had got another man who did not accept me at his place." The added struggle of putting herself through school led her into years of sex slavery.

A friend of her mother's took sympathy on her, so she left to live with her in the capital city of Kampala, where she promised to pay for her school fees.

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However, financial trouble meant she couldn't continue fulfilling her promise. So Jacqueline went to live with her paternal aunt in Namungoona -- a village on the outskirts of Kampala.

But her aunt had an accident and Jacqueline says she was left struggling for money yet again. So she decided to confide in a neighbor.