The shuttle to Voi: How traffickers lured Kalula with fake job
Kalula* was lured with the promise of a fake job and trafficked, only to be abused.
What you need to know:
- Lured by a fake job, Kalula was trafficked and abused—one of many victims of rising exploitation.
- Her ordeal exposes a trafficking crisis, where youth are preyed on amid broken prevention systems.
In January 2022, Kalula* from the Makutano area of Machakos County was excited. Her life was about to change.
As a 21-year-old orphan who had dropped out of school at Class Seven because her aunt could not afford to take her further, life had become unbearable. “My aunt was a single parent already struggling with her five children. She sold vegetables at Makutano, and life was tough. Food was a luxury, but she always tried to ensure we had something to eat for supper,” she says.
So when her aunt mentioned someone was looking for hotel attendants in Voi, Kalula did not think twice. She accepted the offer, unaware of the horror that awaited her.
“There was this man, probably in his 30s, who came to pick me up. He paid my fare to Voi and told me someone would be waiting for me at the shuttle terminal. He described the woman who would meet me and said I should ask for her once I arrived. I didn’t have a phone then,” she recounts.
On arrival, she was received by a woman in a buibui, but they did not head to a hotel as she had expected. “I was taken to a bedsitter, and the woman told me to rest. She brought me milk and bread and told me to shower before sleeping. But later that night, I was jolted awake by a man caressing me. I screamed, but he told me not to worry,” she says, tears welling up.
After sexually exploiting her for hours, the man asked how she had ended up in such a situation. She explained. “He was an older Kenyan man, but rich, judging by the big car he was driving. That morning, while it was still dark, he drove me to the shuttle station, gave me Sh6,000, and told me never to accept job offers from strangers far from home,” she says.
“Though he abused me, he saved me,” says Kalula, who is now married and works as a mobile domestic worker in Nairobi.
Kalula is among thousands of Kenyans who have fallen victim to domestic trafficking, lured with the promise of jobs, only to be exploited sexually. Data from the latest National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) report on human trafficking in Kenya shows a worrying rise in cases.
The NCRC is a state agency mandated to carry out research into the causes, effects, trends, and prevention of crime. Records from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Intelligence Service, and the Kenya Prisons Service show an 82.4 per cent increase in human trafficking cases, from 1,136 in 2020 to 2,072 in 2021.
The report identifies 29 counties as trafficking hotspots, with Machakos among them. The others include Kwale, Mombasa, Nairobi, Kajiado, Marsabit, Isiolo, Mandera, Garissa, Kitui, Turkana, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, and Nandi. Also named are Nakuru, Migori, Narok, Kisumu, Homa Bay, Busia, Bungoma, Meru, Embu, Samburu, Nyeri, Makueni, Tana River, Kiambu, and Kilifi.
The report is based on a study by the government agency conducted in 23 counties, aimed at establishing, among other factors, the prevalence of human trafficking and its drivers. Poverty and unemployment were identified as the primary causes, realities that mirror Kalula’s experience.
To counter trafficking, members of the public and key informants from relevant state and non-state agencies interviewed in the study recommended economic reforms targeting poverty eradication, youth empowerment through soft loans, employment creation, and equitable distribution of national resources.
The study also assessed public perceptions of the effectiveness of intervention strategies in prevention, protection, prosecution, and capacity building. Findings revealed that over 53 per cent of the public viewed all intervention strategies as ineffective, except for capacity building, which was deemed effective by 46.5 per cent.
Among agency officials, more than 55 per cent considered all strategies ineffective, except for prosecution, which was seen as effective by only 43.7 per cent. A village elder in Mombasa County observed in the report: “The arrest and prosecution of human trafficking perpetrators in this area is ineffective, as few have been jailed.”
Similarly, a deputy officer-in-charge at a prison in Taita Taveta County stated: “Not much has been done to prosecute traffickers and other perpetrators in this county.”
*Name changed to protect her dignity.
