Child sex abuse has risen by nearly 70 per cent in parts of Sierra Leone, the West African country still recovering from the catastrophic Ebola outbreak.
Thousands of children have been groomed and raped, according to the Christian charity World Vision, which is calling on the UK government to fund efforts to combat the problem.
World Vision cites police records from Bo District, which was one of the regions worst hit by Ebola, which show that child sex abuse rates in have increased by 69 per cent since 2013.
The charity says says the UK government has a responsibility to help tackle cases of child abuse in order to prevent a crisis that threatens to stunt the country's recovery.
Rob Henderson of World Vision said: "Sierra Leone is understandably quite fragile at the moment having taken massive social and economic knocks following an Ebola outbreak that killed more than 4,000 people and left close to 9,000 children orphaned. Sadly, since the Ebola outbreak thousands of vulnerable young girls in Sierra Leone have been reportedly groomed and raped.
"The UK's humanitarian response has benefitted many children and their families, but funding specifically targeted for child protection does not exist.
"Our recent mission to Freetown city, the town of Bo and other places, served to inform us that the Department for International Development needs to focus on helping the people of Sierra Leone tackle child sexual abuse."
Girls who leave their village homes to study in towns and cities are particularly vulnerable.
In most cases, parents entrust their daughters to friends and relatives in the hope they will receive a good education or better life opportunities.
One 16-year-old girl, Sarah, was groomed and raped by a family friend. She said: "My family had very little money and things were tough. My father was very grateful when 'uncle', a family friend, offered to cover my school fees and let me live with him and his family. One evening, 'uncle' barged into my room and raped me."
When Sarah fell pregnant her attacker offered to marry her, but this was not what she wanted for her or her child.
Sarah found safety in a women and girls shelter run by World Vision partners, the charity Commit and Act. She hopes to go back to school and study to become a social worker so that she can help other vulnerable children.
Mike Kane, the MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, who travelled to Sierra Leone with the World Vision team, said he was shocked by the state of healthcare in the country.
"Sierra Leone has just 250 medical doctors in a population of six million. That's one doctor for every 24,000 people. To compound the crisis, less than one per cent of the national budget is given to social welfare and children," Kane said.
"DFID [The Department for International Development] currently supports security and justice programmes but the culture of impunity in Sierra Leone still fails girls and women. Survivors cannot afford to bring cases to court. They can't afford to pay for medical tests, and many cannot afford to travel to the courts – in the larger cities – to testify. This is why I support the World Vision call for our government to help tackle the scourge of child abuse in Sierra Leone."
