The Human Trafficking Menace: Who Will Help End It?

By Martha Etale

Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.

In Kenya, human trafficking is not seen as before but still, it is not fully eradicated, statistics show that the rise of human trafficking is brought by high numbers of poverty cases in families in which such families tend to fall for whatever will come to eradicate poverty, that is job opportunities promised by traffickers which ends up to be the slavery of different manner.

A case in 2019 of Mary Njambi narrates how she fell into the hands of human traffickers, she received news of a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity far away from her poverty-stricken village situated in the heart of Kiambu County, Central Kenya. She was 20 years old, a single mother, and out of work.

“My best friend told me that rich families in Saudia (Saudi Arabia) were in need of housemaids. My salary would be 1,000 dollars per month and overtime.” Her friend took her to a recruiting agency in downtown Nairobi where all travel arrangements were made at no cost to her.

Three months later Njambi and the other 15 girls made their fateful journey to Saudi Arabia

“We all separated at the airport and I was taken to my employer’s home. The moment I walked in, a woman started barking orders at me in Arabic even though I did not speak the language,” she says. At this point, Njambi had no way of knowing that she had been trafficked.

Human trafficking also happens in Kenya in which people are brought from other countries just as a promise of good a lifestyle. A lot of girls are brought from Uganda to Kenya (Karamojong girls} The girls aged between 10 and 18 k tend to have a special preference for working for the Somali community they are found mostly within the premises of Eatligh, Shauri Moyo, Pumwani, and some parts of Mlango Kubwa.

The girls were given fantasy of what life they are going to live when they reach Kenya while been transported to Kenya so they give themselves easily “we were told Kenya is a good country in which no stepping on mud but just staying in big apartments,” voiced a victim

The operation of rescuing these girls is still on. The  Government of Kenya made significant progress in publicly highlighting the dangers of human trafficking.] Non-governmental organizations such as AWARENESS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING are working on ending human trafficking in Kenya.

About the author

Etale Martha is a young and upcoming journalist with an interest in feature stories and anything that touches on society.