Increasing numbers of young girls are being trafficked for sex work and child labour across the Kenya-Tanzania border
NAIROBI (TrustLaw) – Increasing numbers of young girls are being trafficked for sex work and child labour across the Kenya-Tanzania border, The Standard newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Vulnerable Tanzanian children are promised a good education in Kenya, only to be handed over to families seeking domestic workers, the report said.
Girls often end up working in brothels in the Kenyan districts of Kuria, Migori and Transmara, which border Tanzania, it added.
“I recently received two children who were directed to my home after escaping from their captors. The children hailed from Tanzania and we managed to hand them over to their country’s authorities with the help of police,” Caroline Okere, chairperson of Gender Violence and Girl Child Network in Migori County told the paper.
"It is difficult to identify traffickers as some pose as owners of orphanages and homes for the destitute. Some pass through the border claiming the children belong to their relatives.”
A pastor was arrested in Nyanza Province last month for trafficking a 12-year-old Tanzanian girl into Kenya to work as househelp.
A seven-year-old girl was also sold for $100, according to a Kenyan government official quoted in the paper.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
