Call for tough laws amid rising child sex tourism

Mombasa, Kenya;  Stung by reports of sex exploitation involving underage girls in hotels on the Kenyan coast, human rights groups have commissioned studies to investigate the matter and stem an escalation.

A study conducted by Coast Women In Development (CWID) in 2010 shows that internationally-listed paedophiles were leaving child sex tourism centres in Asia because of tough new laws and were headed for African countries where laws and enforcement is lax. Besides laxity in the enforcement of laws, Kenya is yet to ratify international protocols on Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking, and Children Involved in Child Conflict and Child Sex, according to this analysis.

Various reports quoted in that study indicate that 35 per cent of teenage girls in Diani, Kilifi, Malindi and Mombasa towns are involved in casual sex work, and that 10 per cent of girls began transactional sex without protection with tourists before the age of 12. According to officials of CWID, many girls admitted that they engage in unprotected sex with foreign Westerners to get pregnant in the hope of marrying them or getting some kind of financial contract with them. And a CWID 2012 study indicates that 38 per cent of sex acts involving minors and tourists takes place without protective gear.

  “There are a number of retired tourists who visit Kenya to have sex with children; some even buy properties and settle in Kenya since life is cheap, the currency exchange is low and getting way with this crime is easy as long as you have money,” the 2012 report by CWID reveals. 

It is believed rise in sex tourism is the result of the weak application of the law and corruption of some officials. “It is very difficult in Kenya to convict a white man, security always handles the tourists with kid gloves while the Judiciary is lenient in terms of bonds and fines,” said the report. 

Kenya Coast Tourist Association (KCTA) executive officer Millicent Odhiambo told The Standard on Sunday that hotels at the Coast have signed a code of conduct to help fight vices like paedophilia.