Two suspected human traffickers arrested, 11 girls rescued

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Sunday arrested two human trafficking suspects and rescued 11 girls in Nairobi’s Eastleigh Estate.

The DCI officers were tipped by members of the public about the two suspects identified as Thabit Hanni Yaseen Radman and Faren Yassin Radman.

The rescued girls had been locked in a single room at Ushirika Estate within Eastleigh.

They were aged between 23-30 years.

“Upon interrogation it was established that the foreigners were allegedly recruiting the young women for unspecified jobs in the Middle East,” said DCI.

The two suspects are expected to be arraigned in court on Monday.

According to a 2018 US State department report, Kenya has been mapped as a source and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.

Children in Kenya are subjected to forced labour in domestic service, agriculture, fishing, cattle herding, street vending, and begging.

The report further said that boys and girls in the country are recruited into commercial sex in different sectors; for example, by truck drivers along major highways, fishermen on Lake Victoria, gold mines in western Kenya, among others.

The report further indicates that Kenyans who migrate in search of employment are exploited in domestic servitude, massage parlours and brothels in Europe, the US, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

The report also listed Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman as Middle East destinations where Kenyans have experienced forced manual labour or other forms of exploitations.