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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Dec 30 2010 - 15:50:12 EST
http://www.africanews.com/site/Illegal_human_trade_increasing_in_Kenya/list_messages/36812
Illegal human trade increasing in Kenya
1. Posted on Thursday 30 December 2010 - 08:13
Article by Carol Tomno
*Globally the human trafficking trade is on the rise. Despite being an
underground trade it is raking in billions of dollars annually. Kenya which
is famous for its tourist attractions and world beating athletes is slowly
having its image tainted by booming human traffic trade. This year the
country has seen the human traffic trade increasing.*
The East African country is turning into a destination and transit point
for victims of human trafficking and smuggling. Human trafficking has become
one of the most lucrative illegal businesses in the country.
The victims of the trafficking syndicate are men in their early thirties
and teens mainly from neighbouring Ethiopia .They are being lured by
prospects of better jobs in south Africa, and are turning easy prey for
human traffickers who are out to make quick money .The illegal trade is
part of a lucrative human trafficking and smuggling business that has taken
root along the Kenya-Ethiopia border. It involves desperate Ethiopians out
to join their relatives who are refugees in the western world or those
looking for greener pastures in South Africa.
Victims of human trafficking believe those helping them flee from their
countries will not cause them any harm; they instead see the possibility of
better lives ahead. But most of them have gone through harrowing experiences
or ended up in jail. Many who have been arrested while waiting to go to
the countries of their dreams have been found living in deplorable human
conditions.
But many are willing to persevere if only to achieve the dreams of better
life elsewhere. ‘I wanted to travel to South Africa to secure a better job
and better life like my other friends and relative said Abebe. Speaking in
his native language, he said through an interpreter that he was introduced
to the human traffickers by a friend. But his life was turned upside down
after he was arrested and handed a three month sentence. All his dreams and
the 50,000 shillings he spent to get smuggled into the country has gone up
in smoke. He had seen the possibility of travelling to Nairobi and
thereafter to South Africa but police raided a house where he was hiding
with others and arrested them. He will be repatriated back o Ethiopia after
serving his jail term
Other victims interviewed said they had given all their money to the
Human smugglers. Those who have had their dreams cut short by police
complained that the traffickers had failed to protect them from the police
arrest. International Organization for Migration (IOM), an anti-human
trafficking organization says Kenya's porous borders and war in the
neighbouring countries is fuelling the trade.
This year alone, police in Nairobi have rescued hundreds of people being
trafficked through Kenya. IOM's says most people who are trafficked come
from Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Congo and Kenya itself.
Victims are trafficked from these countries after with the promise of a
better life but they end up working as slaves with little or no pay wherever
they are taken. It is complicated by the fact that most of them can only
communicate in their native languages. Kenya is now in the process of
enacting laws to protect victims and counter human trafficking.
Another trade that seems to be thriving in Kenya is the illegal trade in
body parts. Recently Police in the country unearthed a syndicate in which
human body organs are reportedly sold across borders in Eastern Africa.
Authorities said the illegal trade involved mortuary attendants and workers
of funeral homes mainly in the capital city Nairobi.
This year several people were arrested by the police for transporting
male genitals to a neighbouring country, after they laid an ambush following
a tip-off. The suspects included an employee of a local funeral home.
But perhaps the biggest shock was from a 28 year old Kenyan Nathan
Mutei who attempted to sell his 20 year old albino friend Robinson in
neighbouring Tanzania for $250,000. Police said investigation had shown body
parts have a booming market in neighbouring Tanzania, where more than 50
albinos have been killed in the last three years. Remains of albinos are
sold to buyers who believe the body parts will cure them or make them rich.
Globally, it is estimated that human trafficking trade, a new form of
modern slavery rakes in up to about $2.9 billion in profits. Bizarre as it
may seem, the sale of Human organs equally rakes in Billions of Dollars
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