Although they are legally outlawed, the number of sex workers in the country has increased over the past few years.

Growing unemployment and inflation and the resulting rise in poverty have led many down this road.

Increasingly, young women across the country are putting their bodies up for sale in the “flesh markets”.

The daughter of a poor rural farmer from the Punjab province’s sub-district of Chiniot, Kaneez Fatima’s only advantage was that she was able to complete her school education.

Still in her teens, she was married off as is normally the case in Pakistan’s rural heartland.

“Initially it worked fine, but then my husband went out of work,” she told BBC Urdu.

“I had two small children to support, and started to work as a maid.-