In the bare premises of an Abidjan Internet cafe, 12-year-old
schoolboy Mohammed plays Cupid.

Scores of young women in the West African country of Ivory Coast have
taken to surfing the Web, some for hours a day, determined to find a
husband.

And not just any man will do.

"When you ask them what sort of guy they want, they all say the
same thing: white, with a house, aged about 50 ，" he said,
smiling shyly.

Some of the women are illiterate. Most do not know how to use a
computer or cannot type fast.

To earn his pocket money, Mohammed helps the man-hunting girls write
their love messages, post them on the Internet and read e-mails from
potential suitors.

"These Web sites are about love but when you meet these girls
you feel that it's not really love they are looking for," he said.

Kone Adjouma, who runs the Cyber Center where Mohammed works, says
most of his customers are 18-to-20-year-old girls who see a white man as
their ticket to a better life in Europe, Canada or the United States.

"Sometimes, after a while, the guy comes here for a week to meet
the family. Then he would send over a plane ticket and a bit of money
for the documents," Adjouma said. "I have been here for two
years and I've seen nine girls leave like that."

The dating pages of Web sites can carry 30 to 40 new messages every
day from Ivorian women seeking partners. Most say they want "un
blanc" (a white). Some can be quite specific about other
requirements too.

"Pretty, young African woman seeks European man, only aged
between 40 and 50, for marriage, well-off because I think that's what
you need to be happy, let's not be ashamed about it," said a recent
message.

Not surprisingly, some matches made on the Internet turn sour very
quickly.

Rebecca, 22, says her friend Viviane sounded very happy when she
found a man who asked her to go over to France. "He was buying her
clothes. He was taking her to clubs. Everything looked fine but then,
after two weeks, he told her she had to work as a prostitute," she
said. Viviane managed to escape and now lives in Ghana.

But even the most horrible tales seem to do little to dent the hopes
of Yolande, 21, who works as a maid and hairdresser. She says she has
been dreaming of marrying a foreign man since she was 15.

Yolande says the French embassy has twice refused her a visa after a
Frenchman she met in Ivory Coast sent her money and a ticket to join
him.

She said she will keep trying. "I can't read and I can't write,
my mother works in the fields at the village. When I have a child, I
want him to have a different life."