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Kenyan police bust traffickers selling 2-week-old baby for $1,700 – report

by Katy Migiro | @katymigiro | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thursday, 10 July 2014 17:07 GMT

Police pose as buyers of baby for sale at clinic in Nairobi slum

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Kenyan police arrested six suspected baby traffickers in an undercover sting operation in a Nairobi slum, The Standard newspaper reported on Thursday.

Locals tipped off the police about a clinic in Kayole slum which they suspected was trafficking children.

Kenya has a significant problem with trafficking, particularly of children who are used as child labourers and prostitutes.

“An undercover police officer approached the clinic and posed as a customer in need of an infant, upon which he was told to buy the infant at Sh150,000 ($1,700),” the paper reported.

The baby was about two weeks old, police told the newspaper.

"The six are being interrogated before further action is taken on them. Such cases are rampant in informal settlements where poverty is high," Nairobi police chief Benson Kibue told the newspaper.

Other locals told police the practice had been common in the area for a long time and that children were being sold for between 20,000 and 200,000 Kenya shillings ($230 and $2,300), depending on their age and sex, the paper added.

Reporting on the same story, the Daily Nation newspaper said that buyers place orders at the clinic before the children are born and the mothers of the trafficked babies are told that their infants died during delivery.

Kenya is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons report.

 It placed Kenya on its Tier 2 Watch List for trafficking for a third consecutive year. This means Kenya does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and has not provided evidence of increased efforts to tackle the problem.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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