How Kenyan women are trafficked to Europe

There was a compelling global resolution to end international sex trafficking through consensus on European regulation in 1899.

A congress was held in London, United Kingdom, hoping to reach a global pact to eliminate sex trafficking. This was followed by conferences in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1901, London in 1902, and Paris, France, in 1904.

In 1919, after the end of the monolithic World War I, the newly created League of Nations appointed an official body to collect facts relating to the trafficking of women. Subsequently, in 1921, at a conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, attended by representatives from 34 countries, she established the Committee to Combat Trafficking in Women and Children.

According to Human trafficking in East Africa by the International Organization for Migration, the UN adopted and strengthened the work of the Geneva Committee in 1946 after the end of World War II. Three years later, on December 2, 1949, the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Commercial Exploitation of Sex Workers was ratified by 72 countries, including Kenya.

Despite being a signatory to this convention, the heinous escalation of sex trafficking has made Kenya a primary source, transit and destination for women trafficked for sexual exploitation. By 2003, efforts to eliminate sex trafficking in Kenya had regressed so corrosively. Kenya has been placed on the Tier 2 watch list, due to its lack of evidence in combating human trafficking.

Law enforcement ineptitude and official incompetence have primarily hampered the government's ability to effectively combat and dismantle trafficking in women. The trafficking of women from Kenya to Europe is carefully organized.

Traffickers recruit women from remote, impoverished areas and urban centers that constitute a never-ending conveyor belt of victims. They approach their potential recruits in a calculated manner, with convincing charm and a touch of seductive manipulation.

Address the desperation and naivety of each victim and articulate definitive answers to their inquisitions, while building trust. They categorically promise their victims lucrative jobs abroad, while feeding them a constant diet of misinformation and errors. Union affiliates then arrange all of the women's travel, with the understanding that they will be reimbursed once the victims start working.

They discreetly falsify travel documents for victims and the majority end up in Germany, which accounts for 48 percent of people trafficked in Europe, and the United Kingdom, which accounts for 32 percent. Ironically, repressive government bureaucrats are still in cahoots with traffickers, helping to expedite the provision of false documents for a fee while validating the traffickers' immorality.

In Europe, victims are diverted to European traffickers who, in compensation, pay Kenyan traffickers three times the total cost of travel expenses. European traffickers then send the victims to bars and nightclubs.

Currently, European bar and club owners pay European agents 12 times the amount agents paid to Kenyan traffickers. Bar and club owners further multiply the amount they paid to EU agents by 1.5 to calculate the total debt each victim must repay to them.

It is therefore the victim who bears the exaggerated responsibility for the entire transaction, which amounts to 54 times the total cost of the travel arrangements paid by the Kenyan traffickers. In addition to the enormous debt, victims are exploited within the complex human trafficking network.

There is no regulatory legal framework to pay the debt incurred. Travel documents are therefore held by nightclubs and bars as security until the debt is paid.

This often takes years, and in some cases more than a decade, which is an epitome of modern slavery. Most trafficked Kenyan women enter Germany and the United Kingdom via Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Moldova and Croatia, with fake student visas. European agents then organize their transfer to their final destination.

Victims essentially receive false travel documents, facilitated by European agents. At this point, trafficked women enter Germany or the United Kingdom on short-stay, transit or tourist visas, as this is the easiest type of visa to obtain in European countries from ballast. The visa does not authorize its holder to engage in income-generating activities in Germany and Great Britain.

This implies that victims are trapped and will not be able to access decent legal employment if they escape their captivity. They work in clubs and bars and therefore do not benefit from any legal protection. As a result, they tolerate more mistreatment and sexual abuse while continuing to work in dire conditions, for fear of arrest if reported by law enforcement.

Victims are physically and psychologically subjected to severe tyranny. Bar and club owners exploit their vulnerability and make excessive profits. They are forced into prostitution and provide sexual services to patrons of nightclubs and bars without receiving pay. They only receive food and lodging and, in many establishments, these daily meal and lodging obligations are added to their debt.

The writer is a novelist, Kenyan representative of Big Brother Africa 2 and founder of Jeff's Fitness Center (@jeffbigbrother).