KEY POINTS
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Kenya child sex trafficking involves girls as young as 13.
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Madams profit from minors in Maai Mahiu’s sex trade.
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Aid programs for survivors are collapsing due to funding cuts.
In Maai Mahiu, a fast-moving transit hub in Kenya’s Rift Valley, child sex trafficking thrives in silence. An investigation by BBC Africa has exposed how women, known locally as “madams,” are actively exploiting girls—some as young as 13—in the town’s entrenched sex trade.
Kenya child sex trafficking exposed by undercover probe
Two journalists spent months posing as aspiring madams. Women were captured on secret recordings offering minors, openly discussing how they manipulate them with sweets, and admitting to sneaking them out under the cover of darkness. One woman, Nyambura, said, “It becomes risky when you’re dealing with minors… so I sneak them out at night.”
Despite submitting the evidence to the police in March, there have been no arrests. Authorities say the victims and traffickers have vanished, and as usual, no one has been held accountable.
Survivors of child sex trafficking in Kenya speak out
At the edge of this shadow economy, hope falters. A former sex worker known as Baby Girl now offers shelter to survivors in Maai Mahiu. Michelle and Lilian—both trafficked as children—shared haunting stories of rape, abuse, and being forced into sex work by madams.
The shelter also runs community outreach, offering condoms and HIV awareness. But its survival is threatened: USAID, which funds the work, has pulled out. “From September, we’ll be unemployed,” Baby Girl said, worried about the girls’ futures.
With support dwindling and prosecutions rare, Kenya child sex trafficking continues to destroy lives in plain sight.
