NAIROBI: Baby trafficking has become money-spinning industry in Kenya because of widespread poverty. It is common in Kayole, a slum in the capital here, for gangs to steal or buy infants from mothers who are told their child had died or who can’t afford to have more children.
Fueling the trade are couples seeking to adopt children, kidnappers extracting ransoms from families desperate to reclaim their little ones and the economic value of children forced into labor. Children in Kenya can fetch between $2,000 and $3,000, depending on their gender, race and tribe — far more than the $1,246 annual income the average Kenyan earns. “I witnessed a case where a woman wanted to sell her twins,” said Julia Kattam, a health clinic administrator in Kayole. “She could not afford to feed them.”
Lucy Wamboi, a Kayole resident who has helped friends try to find their missing children, said health workers sometimes participate in the trade. “The cost for a baby boy may be higher because they are in demand here,” Wamboi said. “We’ve seen (doctors) selling babies to mothers.” Kenya hosts one of the biggest child trafficking markets in West Africa, said Prudence Mutiso, an attorney with the Cradle Children Foundation, which provides legal representation for children in Kenyan courts.
The rush of poor Kenyans from the countryside into its sprawling cities is increasing the market, while traffickers commonly ferry young girls ages 10 to 14 from rural areas to Nairobi for prostitution and forced marriage, Mutiso said. “Poverty and lack of knowledge on trafficking are some of the factors contributing to trafficking,” Mutiso said. Kangari along with other suspects arrested at the clinic denied the charges, insisting the baby’s mother wanted to give up the child for adoption. Joan Akinyi, founder of What Would Jesus Do Ministries, an outreach group for at-risk Kenyan youth, said its family programs are making a dent in the baby trade.
“We’ve been going around every slum to educate teenagers against early pregnancies and abstinence from early sex,” Akinyi said. “These are the practices which lead to baby trafficking, because most teenagers cannot take care of young ones,” so they sell the babies. All that doesn’t matter to Amunga, who continues her heartbreaking search for baby Wilson at local hospitals and orphanages. “It’s painful and unbelievable as a mother to lose your baby,” she said. “I wish the person who took my baby would understand this and return him.”
