Human trafficking cartels are recruiting women and girls from Asian countries to entertain the affluent in Nairobi and Mombasa cities.
The 2024 report by the State Department on trafficking in persons found that recruiters use debt-based coercion to force South Asian women, primarily from Nepal, India, and Pakistan to work in mujra dance clubs in the two cities.
Traffickers go to the extent of forcing them to pay off debts by engaging in commercial sex.
“Traffickers exploit Somali women and girls in sex trafficking in brothels in Nairobi and Mombasa,” the report added.
Mujra is a dance performance mainly by women, sometimes men, often performed in a suggestive or cabaret style in a format that emerged during the Mughal dynasty in India. The elite class and local rulers such as the nawabs of Indian society frequented for their entertainment.
In Kenya, the mujra is spiced up by belly dance, "which is said to have originated from various Middle Eastern, North African, and Hellenic dances with a focus on hip and torso movements".
According to reports, the young Asian women mainly from the rural areas are incentivised with huge pay promises — between $500 and $1,000 — to work as cultural dancers in the Kenyan coast, a popular tourism destination in Eastern Africa.
On November 26, 2021, Shanzu Law Court delivered a landmark ruling, finding prominent businessman Asif Amirali Alibhai Jetha guilty of trafficking 12 Nepalese women and girls into Kenya.
Amirali, who reportedly held Canadian and UK passports, was sentenced to 60 years in jail.
He owned New Rangeela Club in Nyali, where police made a raid and found the Nepalese girls performing mujra dance.
The man faced six charges —trafficking in persons, promoting trafficking in persons, interfering with travel documents, being in possession of proceeds of crime, engaging in business without a work permit, and unlawfully employing foreigners without work permits.
In the ruling, the court found the accused to have been deceptive and that he took advantage of the victims’ financial vulnerability stating.
“The women and girls were kept in a state of slavery and subjected to practices similar to slavery being used to get money from customers at the bar. The exploitation of the girls was also manifested in the way their movements and communication were controlled,” the magistrate ruled.
However, High Court judge Anne Ong’injo in 2022 overturned the ruling and the sentence, arguing that the girls had been made aware of the kind of work they were coming to Kenya to do, thus not deceived. She said the charge on human trafficking wasn’t proved.
The Interior Ministry declared Amirali a prohibited immigrant and ordered his deportation, a decision that was halted by the courts.
In another case in which a minister in the Jubilee administration was implicated, eight Pakistani dancers were arrested at Bella Bella Club in Parklands, Nairobi, suspected to have been trafficked in the country.
The club proprietor, Safendra Kumar Sonwani, and manager Mika Osichiro were charged with human trafficking charges. Sonwani was deported.
The CS was accused of having given the girls special passes into Kenya to promote "trans-national cultures".
The State Department report noted that the Kenyan government had in 2023 identified 201 trafficking victims, compared with 556 victims identified in 2022.
Of the 201 victims identified, traffickers exploited 17 in labour trafficking, 55 in sex trafficking, and 129 in unspecified forms of trafficking. The government identified 20 foreign nationals among the victims, compared with 24 foreign nationals among the victims in 2022.
“Observers alleged criminal syndicates colluded with various law enforcement and immigration departments, including those at border checkpoints and airports, to transport trafficking victims into and within Kenya.
Traffickers continued to easily obtain fraudulent identity
documents used to facilitate trafficking crimes from complicit officials,” the
report said.
An NGO research study on child sex trafficking in coastal areas previously reported 30 percent of the victims reported engaging in commercial sex acts with government officials, police officers, or local authorities, it added.
