With the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons fast approaching on July 30, conversations are taking place across Kenya, with Eastleigh flagged as a trafficking hotspot. A meeting was held in the area, bringing together community members, frontline responders, social protection officers, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to confront the growing threat.
Convened by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection in partnership with HAART Kenya, the forum aimed to amplify awareness under the 2025 National Awareness and Prevention Campaign. This year’s theme, Human Trafficking is an Organised Crime: End the Exploitation, calls for a reckoning with the networks driving modern slavery.
The meeting highlighted Kenya’s dual role as a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. Common forms include forced labour, sexual exploitation, organ removal, and cyber-enabled criminal activities. Global estimates from 2022 show that 3.8 million people in Africa are trapped in forced labour, 12 per cent of them children.
Child trafficking in Kenya is particularly alarming. Child marriage and child prostitution continue to grow, with social media playing a major role in recruitment and grooming. Authorities are urging parents to closely monitor their children’s digital activities, which have become fertile ground for traffickers.
Participants at the Eastleigh forum underscored how push factors like poverty, political instability, and lack of employment combine with pull factors such as the promise of better jobs and living conditions to feed trafficking networks. The rise of fake recruitment agencies posing as legitimate organisations offering work abroad has added fuel to the fire.
In response, young job seekers are being advised to verify overseas opportunities with the National Employment Authority (NEA) to avoid exploitation. Meanwhile, underreporting remains a serious obstacle, and community members were called upon to report any suspected cases of trafficking.
Kenya’s legal framework includes the Counter Trafficking in Persons Act (2010) and commitments under international protocols like Maputo. But young people at the meeting expressed frustration over poor implementation and enforcement, urging government agencies to match commitments with action on the ground.
