Kenya Risks US Sanctions for Failing to Stem Human Trafficking

" ... greed is what fuels this global scourge."

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Kenya Risks US Sanctions for Failing to Stem Human Trafficking:

Saudi princess facing jail in US for treating servant like a slave - Independent.ie

Source: Independent.ie

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/saudi-princess-facing-jail-in-us-for-treating-servant-like-a-slave-29414564.html

Mesha       Meshael Alayban: brought Kenyan woman to US

NICK ALLEN LOS ANGELES – 12 JULY 2013

A Saudi princess has been charged with human trafficking in California after prosecutors accused her of holding a woman against her will as a domestic servant.

Meshael Alayban (42) who could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted, is alleged to have forced the 30-year-old Kenyan woman to cook, clean and do chores 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for payment of $220 (€168) a month.

She was arrested after the alleged victim left a luxury home in OrangeCounty carrying a suitcase and a US State Department pamphlet on trafficking, and then flagged down a bus.

The woman told police that she had been hired in Kenya last year. She went to work for Alayban in Saudi Arabia after signing a two-year contract with an employment agency under which she should have been paid $1,600 (€1,226) a month to work eight-hour days, according to prosecutors.

Ms Alayban's family then travelled to the US in May bringing the victim and four other women from thePhilippines.

Prosecutors said the alleged victim had her passport taken away and was only given it briefly to get through US Customs.

When police went to the house where the family was staying in Orange County the other four women left voluntarily.

Ms Alayban was identified as one of the wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud.

Human rights groups have raised increasing concerns about the phenomenon of modern-day slavery in Gulf states, where migrant workers can find themselves trapped in low-paid servitude with their travel documents removed by employers.

Orange County district attorney Tony Rackauckas said: "This is not a contract dispute. This is holding someone captive against their will. The law of our nation and California does not tolerate people who deprive or violate the liberty of another and obtain forced labour or services. If any person is being enslaved, he or she should contact law enforcement."

Ms Alayban did not attend a court hearing in Santa Ana, California, where a judge set bail at $5m (€3.8m), required that she wear a tracking device, and banned her from leaving the county without authorisation.

Paul Meyer, her lawyer, said the case was a contractual dispute and she had given her word she would address the allegations. He added: "This is a domestic work hours dispute."

He said Ms Alayban had been travelling to the US since she was a child and bail should not be so high simply because she was rich. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

Irish Independent

Working Lives - Human Traffic - Kenya Part 2 - YouTube

Published on Apr 5, 2012 by EHTNorg

The second part of an exploratory documentary on child sex workers in Kenya. Broadcast on BBC in 2010, and nominated for an Association for International Broadcasting award. Produced by Moonbeam Films and Linx Productions for End Human Trafficking Now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Zx_ZFqgCg&feature=g-upl&context=G2dcd984AUAAAAAAAAAA

Working Lives - Human Traffic -- Kenya Part 1 - YouTube

Published on Apr 5, 2012 by EHTNorg

The first part of an exploratory documentary on child sex workers in Kenya. Broadcast on BBC in 2010, and nominated for an Association for International Broadcasting award. Produced by Moonbeam Films and Linx Productions for End Human Trafficking Now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UlzmWHG9Zo0

KENYA: Sex-trafficked women and girls also vulnerable to organ trafficking | Women News Network

Source: Women News Network

Friday, September 30, 2011

Gitonga Njeru – Women News Network – WNN

Somali women entering Kenya via refugee camps are exceptionally vulnerable to human trafficking, including sex-trafficking and organ trafficking. Image: Isani Yardim Vakfi/IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation Turkey

(WNN) NAIROBI: With the highest rate of human trafficking in East and Central Africa, several nongovernmental organizations in Kenya are now under investigation by INTERPOL , the world’s largest international police organization, with 188 member countries. The Interpol Sub-regional Bureau for Eastern Africa is based in Kenya’s capital in Nairobi.

Young women as well as girls who are trafficked can also become a living supply for human body organ transplants.

“Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of using their organs, in particular kidneys, is a rapidly growing field of criminal activity,” says INTERPOL. “In many countries waiting lists for transplants are very long, and criminals have seized this opportunity to exploit the desperation of patients and potential donors,” continues Interpol.

The trail of corruption in Kenya may also reveal human trafficker’s collusion with Kenyan authorities which may include the police and intelligence, as well as the judiciary. This alleged collusion may enable the illegal industry to grow as it goes ‘unchecked’ inside the country.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the most prevalent destinations for trafficked organs is Western Europe and the United States. These destinations have the highest number of patients waiting for a new kidney, liver, heart or pancreas.

Organizations currently under investigation are based in Kenya’s capital Nairobi and in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city. For legal reasons the organizations cannot be named since investigations are ongoing and there are pending court cases.

Investigations are also revealing that young girls under the age of 16 have been trafficked to Europe and the America’s.

“Victims are often misinformed about the medical aspects of the organ removal and deceived about the sums they will receive. Their health, even life, is at risk as operations may be carried out in clandestine conditions with no medical follow-up,” continues INTERPOL.

A growing number of naïve young women, who’s families are tricked by traffickers into thinking they will have a better life once they are in their respective western countries, can find themselves trapped inside an illegal organ ‘donation’ crime ring as their own organs are removed without their consent.

While many are trafficked for commercial-sex-work or for work as domestic household servants, a growing number of women are trafficked into and out of the Kenya for other purposes.

With the growing global rise of diabetes, along with the damage the disease can create in the kidneys, the demand for kidney transplants is on the increase. Currently Kenya has over six million diabetics and over 2 million people in need of kidney transplants.

Global organ trafficking is not something new.

“Organ trafficking appears to be occurring as flagrant and direct violations of the law of many countries with a flourishing of broker nations, intermediary brokers and corporations,” said the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2003. “The consequences are not merely for individuals; trafficking also has major “social, economic, medical and political” repercussions for involved countries,” continues the WHO.

Organizations in Kenya currently under the attention of INTERPOL are also being investigated on matters relating to local kidnappings of young women and girls who have allegedly been taken to backstreet Kenyan clinics in order to remove their internal body organs, such as their kidney and/or liver.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNHCR) is also investigating over 15 Kenyan based organizations involved in collusion with the illegal practice. Investigations are also looking into the misuse of donor money which has been connected to human trafficking.

“It is a shame that organizations that are supposed to protect the voiceless are now abusing their rights,” said Omar Hassan, a commissioner with KNHCR. “Many senior Non Governmental Organization officials have become wealthy over a short period of time and cannot account for their wealth,” he outlines. In 2011 KNHCR has been receiving international acclaim in its efforts to fight justice.

Even though KNHCR has been active over the last year in exposing human traffickers, many obstacles have also been in the way. Individuals inside Kenya who are immune to legal accountability, despite the new 2010 Kenya constitution, are still part of the norm.

While the majority of women who enter Kenya with human traffickers are brought into the country for sex purposes, a growing number are entering the country largely to donate internal organs for what could be considered ‘a throw away fee.’ Some of the most unfortunate women are not paid anything for their contribution and only left for dead.

A percentage of these ‘donations’ come through backstreet clinics in Nairobi and Mombasa. The illegal procedure comes with many dangers. Unethical doctors involved in the organ trade are often short on proper or adequate training with safe transplant medical procedure.

Kidneys and pancreas are the most common human organs illegally transplanted. Illegal heart and corneal transplants are also found in Kenya.

Today a Kidney transplant in a well respected Kenyan hospital can cost as much as $20,000. But a poor South East Asian immigrant in Kenya can receive just $650 in a backstreet clinic in Nairobi for a donated kidney. In South Africa the price is much higher. Someone interested in selling their organs can be paid up to $20,000 or more to ‘donate’ a kidney in a public hospital.

Women and girls suffering from extreme poverty are in much higher danger as victims of sex-trafficking. They can also be tricked into donating organs. Organ trafficking is a global human trafficking crime that includes many global partners. Victims of these crimes are those who often suffer the most from poverty. Image: MFFO

As the needs for kidneys increase throughout the world the rates for kidney transplants also rises. In 2007, the cost in Russia for the sale of one kidney was set at approximately $25,000. In 2011, the total medical expenses for a kidney transplant procedure supervised by a medical team in a standard U.S. hospital is a staggering $262,900.

The situation for organ trafficking is strongly dependent on supply and demand.

“In the United States for instance, kidney donations between 1990 and 2003 increased by only 33% while the number of patients waiting for kidneys grew by 236%,” says author and Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley Nancy Scheper-Hughes.

Currently Kenya has no enforceable law that regulates the transplant of kidneys or other internal body organs. There is also no reliable law that protects women, men or children from this kind of trafficking. Analysts have blamed the growth of illegal back-street clinics performing organ removal to the lack of laws in the country.

Located near the bottom of the list by German human rights group Transparency International with a 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index of 2.1, Kenya shares its position with Russia, Cambodia, Tajikistan and Congo-Brazaville.

Brought to the industry by a desire for financial gain corrupt government officials; organ brokers; airport officials; doctors and hospital personnel; police mortuaries and organ banks and repositories perpetuate the rise in the globalization of organ trafficking.

Recent 2011 improvements in corruption in Kenya have been visible though as judicial reforms aim to give stronger legal culpability to government officials causing some Kenyan leaders to face increased legal examination and accountability.

“Already, the country is in the process of extraditing a former Finance government Minister to the United Kingdom to face charges of money laundering,” says Judy Thongori, a family law attorney based in Nairobi.

Kenya’s new constitution is expected to come into full implementation in 2012 when the country holds its first election under the new system. With laws and policies on the table, lawyers say that justice inside the country will improve as new laws and the new constitution are fully established.

“Justice is still on since the constitution was promulgated last year. But we hope by next year, many of the pending cases will be solved fairly,” says Thongori. ”The new law gives hope to many Kenyans, unlike the previous one; it holds many leaders accountable for their actions.”

While numerous Kenyan women are trafficked outside of Kenya to provide human organs for organ transplants, many others are also trafficked into the country to provide live potential organ donors. Most women who become victims to these traffickers easily fall through the cracks, as many come to Kenya from conflict affected regions in and surrounding Somalia.

“Of late there have been so many migrants from Somalia who have been involved in all sorts of activities such as prostitution. Most illegal immigrants in the country come from war torn Somalia Republic,” continued Thongori.

In an attempt to slow the tide of trafficking, the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently working with respective countries to return trafficked children, who have been identified, back home to their families.

Organ trafficking is also an issue for children. According to the United Nations Convention Against Organized Crime, also known as the Palermo Protocol, outlines the punishment for traffickers, especially for those selling women and children through exploitation.

“Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs,” says the protocol.

Consent of the victim is “irrelevant” says the Palermo Protocol. Transporting, harboring and holding a child for exploitation is considered by the protocol to be ”trafficking in persons” even if none of the usual means of trafficking are employed.

“We are doing what we can to make sure that many of these children return safely to their families. It is not an easy process since the laws in some of those countries mostly in Western Europe give a lot of requirements,” said an official in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs who is not allowed to speak to the media. In the past few months, the country has deported hundreds of illegal immigrants to their home countries as a way to battle human trafficking and dealing.

But how many legal patient recipients for organ transplants are most of the women in Kenya?

“…the circulation of kidneys followed established routes of capital from South to North, from East to West, from poorer to more affluent bodies, from black and brown bodies to white ones and from female to male or from poor, low status men to more affluent men. Women are rarely the recipients of purchased organs anywhere in the world,” says Professor Scheper-Hughes.

A new Birth and Deaths Registration Bill 2011, which is still in review in Kenya’s transitional parliament, may be instrumental in tracking illegal crimes in the human organ trade, which can happen easily without consent or public knowledge after death.

For the first time a formal registration of all deaths and births in Kenya will be “compulsory,” which hopes to help with the problem of illicit human organ harvesting. The ‘cause of death’ is also required to be included on all death certificates and signed by a medical officer who has knowledge or who has been in attendance at the death.

Under the new law, those taking charge of the body after death, such as administrators of funeral homes or mortuary facilities or other institutions handling a body following death, will also be traced and named.

______________________________________________________________________

In June 2008, Ana Lita, Ph.D. Director of the AHA Appignani Center for Bioethics in NYC talked about the crisis in the rising global need for organ transplants at the 17th World Humanist Congress held in Washington D.C. With rising needs come rising costs as organ removals for transplants are done illicitly The imbalance of supply and demand for medical procedures with transplants is mirrored in the increased profits of organ traffickers along with an increased supply of organs coming from those who are suffering from poverty. Conditions of greed and poverty contribute much to the illegal crimes surrounding the global black market for human organs.

______________________________________________________________________

On a September 2010 investigation, the Kenyatta National Hospital invited detectives from Kenya’s criminal investigations team to investigate whether more of the hospital staff were involved in the reported trade in human body parts from Kenyatta Hospital mortuary. While acknowledging that the man arrested, who was later charged with harming a dead body, was an employee the hospital sought to assure the public that this was an isolated case and not a regular occurrence at the facility. Since this video was produced hospital director and chief executive, Dr. Jotham Micheni, has stepped down on the expiration of his contract with the hospital. Sylvia Chebet reports for Kenyan CitizenTV in this 2:18 min 2010 report.

The WIP Contributors: Pursuit of Greener Pastures in Saudi Arabia Spells Doom for Kenyan Immigrants

by Joyce J. Wangui
-Kenya-

As the quest for working abroad heightens for many skilled and semi-skilled Kenyans, only a handful understand the implications of working in countries where labor laws are ignored. Media reports of brutality toward foreign laborers in Saudi Arabia have done little to deter determined Kenyans from seeking greener pastures. But has the search for a better life become modern-day slavery?

• Women in Mombasa - the city with the highest level of migration to Saudi Arabia in Kenya. Photograph by Flickr user Lvovsky and used under a Creative Commons license. •

The 2010 International Organization for Migration report Harnessing the Development Potential of Kenyans living in the United Kingdom cites the lack of employment opportunities and unattractive wage levels in Kenya as among the factors that have led to high levels of migration abroad.

Approximately 3000 female Kenyan domestic workers are currently working in Saudi Arabia (although the number could be higher since some do not register with the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh). Of these, 90 percent are from Mombasa, where a majority of residents share the same Islamic beliefs as Saudis, a factor that woos many into immigrating there.

Saudi Arabia has been in the spotlight for unlawful human trafficking and has been named a Tier 3 country by the U.S. Department of State in its 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report. A Tier 3 country’s government does not fully comply with the minimum standards required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and is not making significant efforts to do so.

When Salma Noor, 28, left Kenya for Saudi Arabia in 2008, she thought she was entering a safe haven. Her job-recruiting agent had promised her a lucrative job at a duty-free shop based at Riyadh International Airport.

“Upon reaching in Saudi, I was received by a middle-aged couple who told me that I would work in their house as a domestic worker.” Her employers confiscated her passport and took her mobile phone. She was made to work 18 hours a day, usually with no food, save for the little she managed to grab while cooking.

“I was not even allowed to sleep in the house. I slept in an uncomfortably tiny room, which was for their dog before it died. The man of the house often raped me and threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. His wife beat me on a daily basis, as if the act was part of my job.”

Noor was once burned with a hot iron and later locked in a room devoid of oxygen for committing the crime of singing. “I had to battle for oxygen,” she says amid sobs.

Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship system, known as Kafala, ties employment visas to employers thus transforming voluntary servitude to slavery. A resident permit is arranged by recruiting agencies that match the worker to the household and charge both parties a recruitment fee. Workers become indebted to the agencies and often spend months repaying them.

A typical workday for domestic workers in Saudi Arabia is 15 hours. At US $7-14 per day, the average hourly wage amounts to less than one dollar per hour. In extreme cases, an employee’s salary is withheld for a long time with the assumption that the domestic worker does not need the money since she has all provisions at her host house.

Fatima Hassan, 30, is a victim of such wage slavery. She had not been paid for one-and-a-half years and recently returned to Kenya. Hassan says she was lucky to escape.

“Whenever I asked for my payment, my boss insisted that she keeps for me until it gets into a lump sum, but when I nagged for it, I was thoroughly beaten and threatened with death.” She adds that some Saudi families would rather kill you than pay your wages.

Hassan was assisted by the Kenyan embassy in Riyadh. “Embassy officials could not intervene for my salary, though they paid for my return flight to Kenya after keeping me for two weeks at the embassy premises.”

Like many others, Hassan was confined in her employer’s house for two years under a cruel system that is socially accepted and legally sanctioned in Saudi Arabia. “No off-days, no rest, no nothing. These people are animals, in fact worse than animals,” is all Hassan has to say.

In yet another harrowing incident, as reported by Human Rights Watch in 2010, Saudi authorities deported Fatima Athman, a domestic worker from Mombasa after she reported injuries “from her employer pushing her off a third-floor balcony in an attempt to kill her. She survived because she fell into a swimming pool.”

When contacted, the recruiting agency that had helped Athman secure her job denied the claims of torture, saying that most girls were being punished for disobedience. Suffering by Kenyans at the hands of both employers and employment agencies has spurred heated debates among human rights activists, the media, and civil societies. They blame the government for keeping a blind eye.

• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton releases the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 2011. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] •

Hassan Noor, an ex-official of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, bluntly accuses the Saudi government for perpetuating neo-slavery. In an interview, he echoes Hillary Clinton’s words that countries perpetuating modern-day slavery should be named and shamed. The U.S. Secretary of State has been at the forefront of spearheading the fight against modern-day slavery in the world.

Self-proclaimed human rights activist Hussein Khalid says, “We have a Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh which appears toothless. Even the Kenyan Ambassador in Saudi Arabia, where these atrocities are happening before his eyes, appears to be silent.” The Government, he feels, should be doing much more to protect its workers abroad.

According to Ken Vitisia, Director of the Middle East Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kenya and Saudi Arabia could sign a bilateral labor agreement soon. “Officials from both countries have held inter-ministerial meetings seeking to establish a legal framework that would protect Kenyans that travel to seek employment in any capacity.”

The agreement would ensure that the government keeps track of Kenyan employees in Saudi Arabia. Amongst the conditions in the agreement, Vitisia says, is a proposal for the contract drawn to be between the employers in Saudi Arabia and the Kenyan employee before travel. Most of the contracts currently being signed are between agents and the employee and later the agent draws another one between him and the employers.

A joint collaboration between the labor and foreign affairs ministries and the International Organization for Migration has also seen the establishment of a labor migration unit to protect the increasing number of Kenyans working abroad.

Labor official Beatrice Kituyi says the unit would act as a one-stop shop where information will be processed and enquiries on labor migration addressed. “We issued a directive to all international employers and employment agencies to register with us, detailing the nature of the jobs, skills required, and the wages being offered. They also have to be vetted.”

The unit has also spread information at home to bring about greater awareness of the risks and rights faced by Kenyan women who choose to migrate and to strengthen the services provided to them by its embassies.

The Human Rights Watch report As If I Am Not Human documents how domestic workers in Saudi Arabia suffer physical abuse, sexual abuse, and economic exploitation but face obstacles to redress. Saudi law specifically excludes domestic workers from protections of the labor law.

Some victims of abuse, due to procedural hurdles, choose to leave the country rather than confront their abusers in court. Subira Bakari unsuccessfully tried to file complaints with the police. She recently returned home with her son, who was also working in Saudi Arabia under deplorable conditions.

“When it dawned on me that taking my abuser to court was an exercise in futility, I feigned sickness and was consequently deported to Kenya.”

Bakari faked epilepsy, which prompted her employers to contact her agency back home to arrange for her repatriation. “This was no easy task as my agent ordered me to pay him Sh.150, 000 (US $1,661) in order to return home.”

Bakari adds that the Saudi Government opts to return victims of abuse to their home countries without adequately investigating and prosecuting the crimes committed against them.

Human Rights Watch research shows that migrant domestic workers are some of the least protected workers in the world. In Saudi Arabia, an estimated 1.5 million migrant domestic workers are excluded from labor law protections.

Female domestic workers bear a heavier brunt as they are often trafficked for sexual exploitations. If nothing is done now, poor immigrants will continue to suffer, and even face death, as they seek greener pastures abroad.

About the Author:
Joyce J. Wangui is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya and writes for various online media agencies. She earned a Diploma in Mass Communication in 2002, and started her media career in Rwanda in early 2003 where she worked as a senior political reporter for The New Times, a state-owned English newspaper. Joyce is an active member of Highway Africa; an annual gathering of African journalists in South Africa and the Deutsche Welle Global Media forum held in Bonn, Germany. She is currently pursuing a one-year correspondence degree in International Journalism.

Source: thewip.net

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IRIN Africa | KENYA: Experts welcome counter-trafficking law | Kenya | Children | Gender Issues | Human Rights | Urban Risk

Photo: IOM

Most of those trafficked are lured by bogus recruitment agents and deceived by friends and relatives

MOMBASA-NAIROBI, 8 December 2010 (IRIN) - Counter-trafficking specialists say a law recently passed in Kenya which, for the first time, legally defines and recognizes trafficking in persons as a crime, will help protect the vulnerable and assist survivors, while serving as a deterrent to perpetrators.

"This legislation represents a significant new tool for Kenya in counter-trafficking law enforcement," Tal Raviv, from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement.

Raviv added: "We hope that the new Counter Trafficking in Persons Act 2010 will create momentum to expand counter-trafficking initiatives in accordance with the 2008-2013 National Plan of Action."

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki signed into law the new legislation in October. Conviction carries a 30-year jail term or a KSh30 million (US$370,000) fine.

In the past, absence of legislation and resources has affected law enforcement, officials said.

Claris Ogangah Onyango, the deputy executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers, told IRIN: “It will now be possible to institute proper charges, sustain successful cases and obtain deterrent sentences [for] all those involved in the practice.”

Tony Odera, a lawyer at CRADLE, an NGO that works on children’s issues through legal representation, said many cases of trafficking had been reported in the past but lack of a clear definition of the act had made prosecuting suspects complex.

"The new law will provide a comprehensive legal framework that would address issues pertaining to human trafficking," Odera said, adding that it will enable the establishment of a counter-trafficking in persons advisory committee and provide confidentiality during prosecution and compensation.

Previously, trafficking offences fell under a variety of legal statutes - the penal code, children's act and sexual offences act.

Sex work

Some poor parents and older persons are said to force children into prostitution. CRADLE estimates that about 1,500 minors frequent “sex spots” at the Kenyan coast.

According to Maurice Tsuma, the Coast Provincial Children’s Officer, almost half the 150 children homes in Mombasa are not registered, raising concerns over their activities.

“We’ve raided some homes and closed them down but others come up; we are, however, keeping a close eye on them,” Tsuma said.

In northern Kenya, frequent conflict and drought has made the region a fertile ground for those seeking cheap labour, young wives, even cattle raiders, say residents.

“Some women ferry young girls, offer them accommodation and food and recover the expenses by sending them on to the streets,” Ahmed Set of the Islamic Foundation told IRIN. “It is good that we [now] have a harsh way of punishing those people who ferry young children from remote parts of the region to work as herders [or] maids.”

In Isiolo Town, in the north, IRIN spoke to Maria*, 17, from the Ethiopian town of Moyale.

“I am Ethiopian but I attended primary school on the Kenyan side [of the border]," Maria said. "I completed Standard Eight two years ago [2008] but I did not continue with school. My friends told me education is not the only opportunity, they said my beauty, my body could help me earn a good living.”

She told IRIN she had worked as a transactional sex worker to raise a KSh30,000 (US$375) trafficking fee to be paid to an agent, who would help her join friends working in some of Nairobi’s massage parlours.

Exploitation

According to a June trafficking in persons report by the US Department of State, Kenyans voluntarily migrate to the Middle East, other East African nations and Europe in search of employment, where they are exploited in domestic servitude, massage parlours and brothels, and forced manual labour, including in the construction industry. Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani women also reportedly go through Nairobi en route to work in Europe’s sex trade.

Most of those trafficked are lured by bogus recruitment agents. Fake newspaper and internet advertisements, false marriage proposals and deception by friends and relatives are used in internal trafficking for purposes of domestic or sex work, Alice Kimani, IOM's counter-trafficking project officer, told IRIN.

IOM has assisted the Kenya Association of Private Employment Agencies (KAPEA) in developing a recruitment code of conduct to prevent trafficking. Potential migrants are also encouraged to only use KAPEA or Ministry of Labour accredited agencies.

Kimani said more trafficking cases were being reported as awareness increased. However, she said, exact figures were not available.

"The lack of funding for research on the magnitude, the hidden and clandestine nature of this crime and the fact that it is only in the recent years that people have begun to understand the issue has made it difficult to document the crime, in addition to the fact that there are still no reporting mechanisms that have been set up, and lastly not all victims seek assistance so there is no way of knowing how many are actually trafficked,” Kimani said.

aw-jk-na/js/mw

*Not her real name[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]Source: irinnews.org

IRIN Africa | KENYA: Experts welcome counter-trafficking law | Kenya | Children | Gender Issues | Human Rights | Urban Risk

Women, Children, Men: All Victims of Human Trafficking in East Africa | East Africa | English

12 October 2010

“In Kenya we found women and children being subjected to sexual exploitation."

The International Organization for Migration says there’s an urgent need for tougher action against human trafficking in East Africa. The IOM has released a new assessment of the problem, saying men, women and children of all ages are being exploited.

Human trafficking often begins with the basic desire to seek a better life in another country. However, the IOM says that dream often turns into tragedy with exploitation by family members, religious acquaintances, businessmen and retired prostitutes.

Alice Kimani, the organization’s counter-trafficking program officer in Nairobi, says, “In East Africa, all the countries have been identified as sources, transit and destination countries for human trafficking.”

Although it affects both genders and all ages, Kimani says some are more attractive targets for traffickers.

“You find that children and young people are more vulnerable. But we also see a trend of men being trafficked, even older men for purposes of forced labor, though not in large numbers,” she says.

Many types of exploitation

“For example,” she says, “in Kenya we found women and children being subjected to sexual exploitation. We have found them exploited for domestic work. We’ve recently found some children from Tanzania trafficked to Kenya for street begging. We’ve also come across children who are trafficked to work in the agricultural sector. They are employed in farms and they are subjected to hard labor, forced labor.”

The assessment also found a lot of internal trafficking within Tanzania. Children from rural areas are lured by the promise of going to school. The tempting offer often comes from relatives or friends of their parents. They never make it to school. Instead, they are forced to do domestic labor.

It’s difficult for the IOM to give a good estimate as to how many people in East Africa are victims of human traffickers. “Because of lack of identification techniques or a centralized way of collecting data, a lot of this information gets lost in the way. So the victims may get assisted or they may not get assisted and we’ll never know their numbers,” Kimani says.

Organizing against traffickers

Some 50 senior East African government officials, civil society members and international experts reviewed the IOM’s assessment at a recent meeting. As a result, they proposed the organization take steps to help establish a regional network to share information on trafficking. That could eventually lead to a centralized database that could be shared with law enforcement agencies.

The organization says, currently, Rwanda is the only country in the region where the government has established both shelter and hotline services to assist victims of gender violence and trafficking.

Alice Kimani says they also called for implementation of a region-wide 116 emergency hotline number to report possible cases of human trafficking.

“It was recognized that 116 [is] a number that has been adopted by many countries in the region. For example, Mozambique and Zimbabwe already have 116. Kenya also has a 116. And 116 is a number that has been used in other countries as a very child-friendly line. So the participants were recommending for this number to actually be adopted by all the countries in East Africa,” she says.

Many victims are afraid to talk about their experiences. They say if they go public, traffickers could hurt their families or they could be stigmatized if they returned to their homes.

Kimani says, “It is only through counseling and assisting them that we can actually assist them to come out of that sort of hibernation.

Besides counseling, the International Organization for Migration also offers adult education or business classes to help them find jobs.

Continued violence in the Eastern DRC is contributing to the human trafficking problem. Buses and lorries carry war-weary Congolese to Uganda in hopes of finding a better life, but they often become prey of traffickers.

Women, Children, Men: All Victims of Human Trafficking in East Africa | East Africa | English

Source: VOANews.com

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allAfrica.com: Kenya: Slave Trade Booms as Poverty Bites

Abdullahi Jamaa
6 January 2010

Nairobi — A group of young are gathered behind a makeshift structure where they have been living on edge. They have been sitting idle for the some hours. Their discussion returns to poverty, and how to overcome it. Sweats are beading on their worried foreheads.

Indeed, if there is a poverty-stricken place near Garissa Town, it is Bulla Masalani Village. The sun sets gently, leaving a cloudless sky and the first hints of cool air begin to blow through the thatched houses that make most homes.

"The sun rises everyday and it sets everyday, and like that sun, poverty rises here everyday, making us a lost generation," says a 20-year-old youth we shall call Sheikh.

Seek asylum

"The only option now is to move out of this county and seek asylum." For months Sheikh has been weighing the possibility of making the long journey to Africa's biggest economy: South Africa. "We know that the journey is dangerous, but I cannot allow myself to be consumed by poverty. I better die elsewhere.

"We cannot further our education here, we cannot do business, we cannot get meals, so why should we stay in this horrible condition," he asks the man who completed secondary school two years ago. He has borrowed the money required for the voyage South, now he has only few weeks the journey with human traffickers this month.

"Many friends and relatives have already gone, some died on the way and others are surviving. The one important thing is to run away from Kenya," he says. Human trafficking business in the North Eastern region is getting bolder with every passing day.

"Of course we will have to seek better life elsewhere. We are concerned. Living conditions are getting worse by the day" says, Ahmed 19. Human traffickers have established a strong network to make money from those who are fleeing the sheer crumbling economy and the shocking unemployment that has ravaged most of Kenyan youth.

And here in the North, the scale of human trafficking is alarming. "Trafficking of people is very rampant here. It is a multi-million dollar business that is getting bold in much of the Great lakes and Horn of Africa region," says Mr Abdullahi Hirsi, the executive director of Northern Heritage, a local aid agency in Garissa.

"In the past few years alone, because of droughts, we have seen a huge number of economic refugees targeted by human traffickers with a promise of better life elsewhere," he said. A spot-check in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera shows that the illegal business is conducted daily, final arrangements done in Nairobi.

"In Garissa, at least five persons are trafficked in each of the more than 10 buses plying the route to Nairobi. You can imagine the number of people on sale everyday -- more than 50," says an anti-trafficking activist who sought anonymity due to security reasons. "This depicts a completely worrying picture."

Nairobi's' Eastleigh has been the hub of the internationally denounced trade. Economic and conflict refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya are sold in the sprawling commercial centre to move to other countries. "Eastleigh is a connection point for most victims. It is where the journey starts and it is where most monies exchange hands," says Amina Kinsi of Ngazi Moja Foundation, a lobby group in Eastleigh.

According to a recent report released by US State Department in June 2009, Kenya is a source, transit and a destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purpose of better lives, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Victims take tedious routes to South Africa and sometimes to some European countries. Traffickers make millions of dollars every month by arranging and directing the journey to South Africa. Some victims end their travels with shocking deaths.

The cheapest illegal migration goes well over $600 while the most expensive takes more than $2,000 for a journey that sometimes takes several months. "Sometimes, you become stranded in a town where you know no one. I spent more than a week in Zambia as I had run out of cash," said Farah, who returned from South Africa at the height of Xenophobia against Somalis.

"I reached Johannesburg after more than three weeks of journeying. It was the worst journey ever for me." The cartel of human traffickers usually collect per-head fee at every entry point of these countries. "Traffickers use unmanned border towns, often meeting with little police and security restrictions," says Mr Hirsi of Northern Heritage.

Some of this money is usually meant to pay kickbacks to Immigration officials and border police. "We travelled in group of about 10. At every point we paid about $100. If you don't have enough money, you are left alone and you may get lost. That could mean losing your money or even your life," says Farah.

The International Organization for Migration says women and girls are vulnerable to sexual abuse including rapes by even their own traffickers. Corruption among public officers has made life easy for benefiting from the sale of stricken villagers. Anti-trafficking NGOs in North Eastern say corrupt police officers are part and parcel of the business. Intelligence officers in the province agree. The authorities are incapable of changing things to stop the slave trade.

However, the North Eastern PC James Ole Serian says the government is making efforts to investigate and prosecute officials suspected of involvement. "We are having names of about seven individuals allegedly taking part in the illegal trade of selling people. We are investigating their case and we will obviously arraign them in court," he says.

Pressure groups are saying that bus companies from the region to the capital Nairobi traffic even young children. "Bus conductors and some police officers on major roadblocks are major players," says an activist. But as public transport gets tough for those involved in the business, the provincial authorities say these thieves have now resorted to more unlikely means.

Over the past few months, boats and dhows have been used to transport victims across River Tana. More are reportedly using government vehicles that are not searched by police.

Groups campaigning

Groups campaigning against the illegal trade are worried that trafficking industry continues to be a profitable one in much of the Horn, but there is misery involved. An assessment carried out by the International Organization for Migration in the target regions of Kenya establishes poverty and the search for livelihood as key factors that render people vulnerable to trafficking.

Over the years, trafficking has grown a well organised crime that operates on a global scale, with an estimated trade value of $32 billion a year. Lack of global action and accords to prevent the trade is one key problem.

"In Kenya for instance, there are no immediate laws that can be used to address this problems. Some laws and amendments are urgently needed to stop the vice," says Mr Hirsi. "You can realise the state of our lives. We are seeing traffickers are making money from people like us but we have accepted ourselves to be trafficked just to reach greener pastures," Sheikh finally says.

allAfrica.com: Kenya: Slave Trade Booms as Poverty Bites

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Kenya ‘lacks laws to fight human trade’

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Labour minister John Munyes (centre) launches the website on countering human trafficking in January, 2009. Kenya urgently needs legislation to fight human trafficking, an aid agency said on Sunday. FILE

By NATION CorrespondentPosted Sunday, December 13 2009 at 19:47

Kenya urgently needs legislation to fight human trafficking, an aid agency says.

Emergencies such as drought, hunger, civil and political unrest have resulted in a rise in forced displacement, a perfect condition for trafficking, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.

Kenya has been described as a transit point for traffickers who smuggle people to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and America.

Addressing a press conference in Nairobi, Tal Raviv, IOM’s regional programme development officer, said there was an increase in human trade locally and internationally.

“Tragically, human trafficking is on the increase in Kenya. Victims are caught between favourable conditions for traffickers and lack of proper laws,” Ms Raviv said.

Young girls

IOM’s plea could, however, soon be answered as the Counter Trafficking in Persons Bill has been taken to Parliament by nominated MP Millie Odhiambo and could be debated in February.

Ms Raviv said in Kenya, victims are trafficked locally as well as across borders.

She cited cases of young girls being lured to urban centres with promises of jobs or education but end up as domestic workers or sex slaves.
“There is need for a formal procedure of relocating such children, even if those taking them are known people,” she said.

IOM’s counter trafficking consultant Japheth Kasimbu said human trafficking in Nairobi was flourishing because of an increase in brothels and massage parlours, which exploit foreign young women.

He said the girls are lured from Rwanda, DR Congo, Uganda and Somalia.

Trafficking is the third highest paying organised crime, raking in between $8 billion and $31 billion globally every year, according to the UN and US government.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/822012/-/vo2xjy/-/

Kenya a conduit for human traffickers

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

BY SARAH WAMBUI and CATHERINE KARONG'O

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 10 - A local NGO is warning that Kenya is being used as a channel of trafficking women from war-torn Somalia who are sold off as sex slaves abroad.

Womankind Kenya Executive Director Hubbie Hussein said on Thursday that about 20 to 50 young women from northern Kenya are trafficked every week to Nairobi and other European countries.

Ms Hussein explained that the phenomenon first targeted women placed in internal camps in Somalia but the practice is now spreading to Kenyan girls who live around the northern border towns.

“What is happening is that vehicles that ferry miraa (khat) to Somalia are also used to ferry young girls and women for the purpose of trade. Businessmen and women traffic these young girls to brothel houses in Nairobi and other countries,” she said.

Ms Hussein said that the girls were lured into the business with promises of jobs where they are made to part with some money so as to secure their ‘jobs’. She added that some of the girls were defiled by their traffickers before getting to their destinations.

“These girls are misused by the men in the vehicles after being told that they will be resettled in America. The law enforcement is very loose; police are not very cooperative; after all women are seen as objects for the pleasure of men,” she explained adding that a lot of young girls had dropped out of school in the region.

Ms Hussein who spoke as Kenya marked the final day of activism against violence on women commended the new Provincial Commissioner for North Eastern province saying he had so far tried to reduce the vice and asked the government to increase its efforts in fighting the ill.

“Mr Ole Serian is trying to work hard to stop this trade and is concerned about the violence against women. He has tried to make reforms at the provincial level but he cannot work alone. He needs support from the government,” she said and observed that the wrangles within different factions of government would not help avert the wrong.

“The conflicts between our politicians (who are always exchanging harsh words against one another) water down to the ground level such that these people (the cartels) see that there are no checks and balances and continue with the trade,” she stated.

Ms Hussein further added that Mr Serian’s efforts in the area had seen the government try to tighten the porous border lines however adding that more needed to be done.

“Security has been beefed up at the border points but there are still panya routes that are used to ferry these girls. The cartels know where the police are stationed and so they dodge them and use other routes,” she said further asking the government to tighten the entry points to Nairobi.

“Nairobi is where the girls are brought; that is where the end market is whether the girls will be taken to other countries or will remain in Kenya,” she explained.

Ms Hussein also called on the government to empower the traditional governance system so that the lowest forms of government committed themselves to ending the illegal trade.

“Our council of elders should be empowered so that they can be on the look out. The youths should be empowered so that they are also on the look out and so that they protect their sisters while women should be sensitised to protect each other. This trade requires the concerted efforts of different consortiums,” she said adding that religious leaders should also speak against the vice.

Elsewhere, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has cautioned Kenyans to be ware of private employment agencies that engage in human trafficking.

IOM Regional Program Development Officer Tal Raviv said on Thursday that emergencies like the food crisis, Mau evictions and the post election crisis create conducive environment for human traffickers to recruit, transport and exploit the vulnerable population.

“As long as you find a job abroad through an agency there should be mechanisms in place to ensure that this will not end up in trafficking,” she said.

She said illegal private recruitment companies had become a common mode of trafficking of persons abroad and added that there was need for a specific anti-human trafficking legislation to curb the menace.

“A person who sees an advertisement in the newspaper should be able to know this is an organisation that is accredited by KAPEA (Kenya Association of Private Employment Agencies) and that means that the contract they give is valid,” Ms Raviv said.

IOM Counter Trafficking Community Outreach Consultant, Japheth Kasimbu said 2008 statistics from the United Nations indicate that 2.7 million people were trafficked annually in 137 countries globally.

“We have also seen manifestations in street begging. We have a lot of women who walk around with children begging for money and they are not necessarily their children. These are children who have just been taken from their neighborhoods and they are using them to make sure that they are earning,” Mr Kasimbu said.

“This child is being exploited because they have been moved from one point to the city for exploitation. That constitutes to human trafficking,” he explained.

Emergency and Recovery Programme Manager Jerotich Seii Houlding noted that during the 2007 post-election crisis some children were moved from Internally Displaced Persons camps to other parts of the country without a clear purpose of what they were going to do.

“But there was an idea of either a children’s home or a school and there was even some religious connotation that this is actually a charitable activity being undertaken by the people who came to take these children and the parents apparently consented and this immediately raised an alarm because regardless of the intention behind the movement of children, if its not a clear case of fostering, adoption where there is a system and structure to protect those children that are being taken, eventually those children could find themselves in a situation of extreme exploitation

The IOM is now conducting a media campaign dubbed the ‘Kaa Chonjo’ to educate and caution the public on modes of human trafficking.

According to Counter Trafficking Project Officer Alia Hirjis the campaign mainly targets the population in Western, Rift Valley and North Eastern which are most prone to human trafficking.

“We want to build community awareness, capacity and create community networks that can support victims of trafficking so that we can build community policing so that if these cases are identified, people can know where to report them,” she said.

She said they also aimed to promote safe migration.

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Kenyanews/Kenya-a-conduit-for-human-traffickers-6779.html#ixzz0ZOZBLF4x