Inside the squalid brothels of Nigeria where tens of thousands of HIV-positive prostitutes are fuelling an AIDS epidemic claiming 10 million lives a year

A series of photographs taken in the slums of Lagos shows the faces of sex workers living in squalid conditions.

And the images have a tragic undercurrent, with tens of thousands of people in the sex trade diagnosed with HIV each year, and millions dying from AIDS across Nigeria.

A survey conducted last year has also highlighted that attitudes towards condom use is helping the spread of the condition, and research suggests that nearly a quarter of Nigerian sex workers have HIV.

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.'

In Badia, sex workers as young as 14, trying to earn money to survive, entertain around five clients a day. 

Last year a study by the Iranian Journal of Public Health noted that the country has a 4.1 per cent HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in adults. 

Thanks to investment and education, the study found, the rate had fallen from five per cent in the early 2000s, but it said there is still some way to go.