Human traffickers prefer crowded areas like Eastleigh in Nairobi to carry out their crime, while anti human trafficking activist Amina Kinsi (above), founder of Ngazi Moja Foundation, fights the crime with the only weapons at her disposal. Photo/ ABDULLAHI JAMAA
By ABDULLAHI JAMAA
Thursday, January 07, 2010
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.
“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 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.