An investigative report has revealed how minors in the coastal towns of Mombasa and Malindi are recruited into sex tourism, a business that is growing rapidly.
The exposé shows how a local cartel recruits boys and girls aged between 14 and 17 then links them with elderly foreigners, especially from Europe.
The cartel takes advantage of the poor families by luring parents to hand over their children who are later introduced to sex and drugs.
According to the piece aired on KTN News, the internet is being used as the most convenient avenue where recruiters come up with fake Facebook accounts that operate under the disguise of charity foundations requiring parents to submit photos and details of their children.
The paedophiles then sample the best photos of teenagers from as far as Kisumu and the Rift Valley before notifying the minor's parents on the arrival of the 'sponsors'.
Parents and guardians innocently hand over their children to the foreigners who begin exploiting them.
“I came from Rift Valley to meet a white person who would sponsor my education. However, he exploited me and introduced me to hard drugs and later dumped me for another girl,[sic]” one of the victims said.
The report further highlights that those running the business evade the law by exploiting the girls in private villas where sometimes pornographic films are shot. The paedophiles avoid hotels since management at such places don't support the business.
In the exposé, parents claim that they are unable to stop the vice since the foreigners provide for them.
Once the young girls have been dumped, they resort to prostitution as a way of sustaining their lives given that most of them are drop outs.
In January 2014, an American citizen John D. Ott, 68, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sexually abusing 14 minors in Kenya over a period of eight years.
