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More than 800,000 children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in Kenya are at a high risk of being exploited sexually and in the workplace, says the African Network for the Prevention and Protection of Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN).
According to Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper, Onyango said an ANPPCAN study had shown that trafficking often involved relatives who lured children from rural areas with promises of a better life and education in towns.
"This kind of exploitation is most prevalent in Malindi [costal town about 100km north of Mombasa], where children taken from as far as Suba district [in western Kenya] end up as prostitutes," ANPPCAN executive director Philista Onyango told a conference on human trafficking in the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday.
"Others find their way into the United Kingdom and the Middle East, where they become domestic workers under conditions akin to slavery."
Kenyan Vice-President Moody Awori said the government was bringing local legislation in line with international conventions protecting the rights of children and women, and added that a Bill to deal with human trafficking was in the works.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
