Léa was 15 years old and known among her peers for her dedication to sport and school. Maya, the same age, was, in her mother’s words, “a teenager like any other.” Both lived in Angoulême, a mid-sized city in France’s Charente region. Neither came from a broken home.
Today, their cases illustrate a crisis French authorities can no longer look away from: the organised prostitution of minors, driven by grooming networks operating with systematic methods and growing impunity.
