Secret Pictures BBC Africa Eye expose “Madam” Maai Mahiu

BBC eye study in Africa revealed as women known as “Madame” participated in children who have 13 years in prostitution in Kenya.

In the transit city of Maai Mahiu, in the Valley of Rift of Kenya, trucks and trucks, streets and night, transporting goods and people across the country to Uganda, Ruda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A key transport center, just 50 km (31 miles) east of the capital, Nairobi, known for prostitution, but it also multiplies for sexual abuse.

Two secret researchers posing as sex workers who want to learn to become Madame, spent a month earlier this year, penetrating sexual trade in the city.

Their secret pictures show two different women who say they know that it is illegal and then represent investigators to minor girls in sex.

In March, the BBC gave all the evidence of the Kenyan police. The BBC believes that Madame has moved a place since then. Police said the women and the young girls we shot could not be traced. There were no arrests today.

Conduct in Kenya are rare. Successful persecution of police need evidence of children. Often vulnerable minors are too afraid to testify.

BBC grains shot on the street in the dark showed that one woman who calls herself Nemburs, laughing as he says, “They’re still children, so it’s easy to manipulate them, just giving them goodies.”

“Prostitution is a monetary crop in Maay Mahiu; truckers mostly feed him. And here’s how we benefit. It is normalized in Maay Mahiu,” she explained, adding that she had one girl as 13 years who had already worked for six months.

“It becomes very risky when you are dealing with minors. You can’t just openly bring them to the city. I just make their way into a big secret at night,” Nembura said.

The act of prostitution by an adult who agrees is not produced in the field of Kenya’s national legislation, but it is banned by many municipal suburbs. This is not forbidden in Maay Mahiu, which is part of the Nakur district.

According to the Criminal Code, illegally living from the salary of prostitution either as a sex worker or a third person who promotes either prostitution.

Trade or sale of minors under the age of 18 brings a prison term from 10 years to life.

Asked if the condom customers wear, Nembura said she usually made sure that they were defense, but strange.

“Some children want to earn more (so do not use them). Some make them (do not use them),” she said.

At another meeting, she brought the investigator secret to the house, where three young girls were huddled on the couch, another on a rigid chair.

Then Nembura left the room, giving the investigator the opportunity to talk to the girls alone.

They described daily that they repeatedly abused for sex.

“Sometimes you have sex with a few people. Customers make you do incredible things,” said one of the girls.

Recently, there are no statistics on the number of children who force Kenya’s sex industry. In 2012, US State Department’s report on human rights in Kenya It refers to the estimation of 30,000, a figure derived from the Kenyan government, and now a non -existent non -governmental organization (NGO), eradicating children’s prostitution in Kenya.

Other studies have focused on specific fields, especially along the country’s coast – known for their tourist resorts. Report 2022 In order for the NGO Global Fund to graduate from modern slavery, it discovered that almost 2,500 children were forced to have sexual work in Kilifi and Kv.

The second investigator, under cover, received the confidence of the woman who called herself a Chap and held several meetings with her.

She said the sale of young girls means that she could “earn a living and comfortable.”

“You do this kind of business in great secret because it is illegal,” she said.

“If anyone says what the young girl wants, I ask them to pay them. We also have our regulars who always return to them.”

Cheptoo took the secret investigator to the club to meet four of his girls. The youngest said she was 13 years old. The rest said they were 15.

She talked about the profit she brings to them, saying that every 3,000 Kenyan Shillings ($ 23; £ 17) the girls deliver, her share was 2500 shillings ($ 19; £ 14).

At the next meeting, at the Maay Mahiu House, Cheptoo left the investigator secret with two minors.

One of them told her that on average, she had sex with five men a day.

When asked what happened when she refused to have sex without a condom, she said she had no choice.

“I have to (have sex without a condom). I will drive and I have nowhere to run. I’m an orphan.”

People outside the UK can watch there

Sex -Industry of Kenya is a complex, muddy world in which both men and women are involved in the relief of child prostitution.

It is unknown how many children are forced to do sexual work in Maay Mahiu, but in this small city about 50,000 people can find them easily.

Former sex workers, known as “girl”, now provides shelter in Maay Mahiu for girls who have escaped sexual abuse.

The 61-year-old guy worked in the sexual industry for 40 years, for the first time being on the streets in the first twenties. She was pregnant and had three young children after her husband’s escape from her family violence.

At her wooden kitchen table in a bright salon in front of the house, she introduced the BBC four young women who were forced to sexual work Madams in Maay Mahiu when they were children.

Each girl shared similar stories of broken families or abuse at home – they came to Maai Mahiu to escape, just to rigidly rigidly treated.

Michel told how at the age of 12 she lost her parents in HIV and evicted it on the street where she met a man who gave her a lot to live and began to sexually abuse her.

“I literally had to pay him for teaching me. I reached the border, but no one was,” she said.

Two years later, a woman who appeared to Madame in Maay Mahiu turned to her and made her sexual work.

Lilian, who is now 19 years old, also lost his parents at a very young age. She stayed with his uncle who shot it in his soul and sold images to her friends. Voayerism soon turned into rape.

“It was my worst day. I was 12 then”.

When she escaped, she was again raped by a truck driver who drove her to Maai Mahiu. It was here, as Michel, where a woman who made her for sex work addressed her.

The short life of these young women was fueled by violence, neglect and cruelty.

Now where the girl is located, they study new skills – two in the photo studio and two in the beauty salon.

They also help the girl in her work in society.

The Nakur district has one of the highest levels of HIV in Kenya, and a girl supported by the US Agency for USAID, is in the learning mission about the risks of unprotected sex.

She has an office in the health center of Karagit, near the lake most where she works, providing condoms and tips.

However, with the decision of US President Donald Trump to pull out USAID funding, its information work programs are going to stop.

“We will be unemployed since September,” she said in the BBC World Service, adding how to worry that she is engaged in young women and girls who depend on her.

“You see how vulnerable these children are. How would they survive on their own? They are still healed.”

The US government did not respond to comments in this investigation into the likely impact of financing. USAID has officially closed last month.

While Lilian is focused on studying photography and abuse recovery.

“I’m no longer afraid because the girl is for me,” she said. “It helps us to bury the past.”