Police rescue 16 in Kayole child trafficking probe
The 10 boys and six girls were found in a two-room rental house in Soweto, police said, adding they were from different parts of the country and Tanzania.
Sixteen children, aged 2-16 years, were on Sunday rescued from a house in Kayole, Nairobi, where they had been held for two weeks by suspected child traffickers, police have said.
A report from the Soweto Police Station, seen by The Eastleigh Voice, says officers pursued the matter after receiving a report from a child protection officer in Embakasi Central Constituency.
The 10 boys and six girls were found in a two-room rental house in Soweto, police said, adding they were from different parts of the country and Tanzania, and that their destination was unknown.
“All the children were temporarily placed at [at a private children's home],” reads the report.
Following the rescue, a woman said to be the caregiver and a Tanzanian national aged 54 were arrested as they could not explain how the children ended up at the house. They were placed in police custody and a trafficking probe was opened.
Several cases of child smuggling and trafficking have been reported in parts of Kenya including Nairobi. Last October, a Nairobi court found two social workers at the Mama Lucy Hospital guilty of child trafficking and neglect of duty.
One was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being caught in a well-planned plot to sell a child abandoned at the hospital, while the other - an accomplice - was handed a two-year non-custodial sentence with the alternative of paying a Sh100,000 fine.
"The two, knowing that they had a duty of care for the three children, exposed them to abuse, and are therefore guilty of the offence as charged," the court noted, adding they violated the ethics of social workers.
In September 2023, a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) pastor was arrested in connection to the alleged trafficking of 10 children from Marsabit to Kisii.
The arrest came after residents of Kisii town raised the alarm, saying children aged five to 10 had been booked into a guest room in the company of two men. The men were arrested.
Sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offenses Act, of 2006, criminalise the facilitation of child sex tourism and child prostitution and prescribe a punishment of no less than 10 years in prison and a fine of Sh2 million.
Top Stories Today
