In a place not far from here, Rebecca’s son is now ten years old. He might be residing in Nairobi, the city Rebecca calls home, or he could be somewhere else, a fact that constantly gnaws at her heart. It’s even possible that he may no longer be alive. The last time Rebecca laid eyes on her firstborn, Lawrence Josiah, he was just a year old.
Rebecca was only 16 years old at the time. It was around 2 a.m. on a March night in 2011 when she found herself in a drowsy state from inhaling the fumes of a handkerchief soaked in jet fuel—a cheap source of euphoria on the city’s unforgiving streets. She resorted to this unusual method because it granted her the courage to approach strangers and beg for survival. By the time she reached 15, her mother could no longer afford to support her or pay for her education, forcing her to drop out and fall into the perilous life of homelessness.
It was during these challenging times that she crossed paths with an older man who deceitfully promised to marry her but instead left her pregnant and abandoned. The following year, she gave birth to Lawrence Josiah, and she raised him for a brief year and some months until that fateful night when she closed her eyes and lost sight of her son.
“Even though I have other children now, he was my firstborn, the one who made me a mother,” Rebecca confided, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’ve searched every children’s center in Kiambu and Kayole, but I’ve never been able to find him.”
Rebecca still lives on the unforgiving streets of Nairobi, her petite frame marked by sharp cheekbones and tightly braided hair. She has three more children now, all girls, aged eight, six, and four.
Her youngest daughter had a harrowing encounter when a man, a regular presence in the area, once grabbed her. He claimed the barely one-year-old girl had asked him for a drink. Rebecca followed him to a car where a woman was waiting. The next day, he returned.
Stories like Rebecca’s can be found with ease in the streets she calls home, along with the stories of countless other homeless residents in Nairobi. Esther, a mother, has not seen her three-year-old son since August 2018.
“I’ve never known peace since I lost my child,” she said with a deep sense of anguish. “I’ve searched for him all the way to Mombasa.” Carol, another mother, recounts how her two-year-old son was taken from her in the dead of night five years ago. She mused, “I loved him so much. I would forgive them if they would just give me back my child.”
Over the course of a year-long investigation, Africa Eye has uncovered compelling evidence of a disturbing practice—children being snatched from homeless mothers and then sold for substantial profits.
We’ve unveiled the presence of illegal child trafficking operations in street clinics and even babies stolen to order at a prominent government-run hospital. In an attempt to expose those who exploit their government positions for this criminal enterprise, we arranged to purchase an abandoned child from a hospital official. This individual used legitimate paperwork to take custody of a two-week-old boy before selling him directly to us.
The individuals involved in this heinous trade range from vulnerable opportunists to organized criminals, with both elements often collaborating to perpetrate their sinister activities.
Among the opportunists is Anita, a heavy drinker and drug user who, at times, lives on the streets herself. She makes her living by stealing children from women like Rebecca, often targeting mothers with infants under the age of three.
Anita’s existence came to our attention through one of her acquaintances, a person who wished to remain anonymous. This friend, whom we’ll call Emma, divulged that Anita employed various methods to snatch children from the streets.
“Sometimes she will engage the mother in conversation first, to see if the mother realizes her intentions,” Emma shared. “Sometimes she will drug the mother, administering sleeping pills or glue. Sometimes she will play with the child. Anita has a lot of ways to get her hands on these kids.”
In the guise of potential buyers, Africa Eye set up a meeting with Anita at a downtown Nairobi pub frequently patronized by street vendors. Anita confided in us that she was under pressure from her boss to abduct more children and described a recent incident of abduction.
“The mother was new to the streets, appeared to be confused, and not fully aware of her surroundings,” Anita recounted. “She trusted me with her child. Now I have the child.”
Anita further disclosed that her boss was a local businesswoman who purchased stolen babies from petty criminals and then profited from their sale. Some of the buyers were “women who are barren, so for them, this is a kind of adoption,” she explained, but she added, “some use them for sacrifices.”
“Yes, they are used for sacrifices. These children just disappear from the streets and are never seen again.”
This unsettling revelation echoed what Emma had shared with us, that Anita had mentioned some buyers “take the kids for rituals.”
In reality, once Anita has sold a child, she knows little about their fate. She sells them to the businesswoman for 50,000 shillings for a girl or 80,000 shillings for a boy, which roughly equates to £350 or £550. This appears to be the going rate in Nairobi for snatching a child from a mother on the street.
“The businesswoman never discloses her intentions with these children,” Emma stated. “I asked Anita if she knows what the woman does with them, and she told me she couldn’t care less, as long as she gets paid.”
Shortly after our initial meeting, Anita contacted us to set up another meeting. When we arrived, she was holding a five-month-old baby girl that she claimed to have snatched just moments ago after gaining the mother’s trust.
“She handed her to me for a moment, and I ran away with her,” Anita recounted.
Anita mentioned that she had a buyer ready to purchase the girl for 50,000 shillings. Our source, Emma, intervened and claimed to have found a buyer willing to pay 80,000 shillings.
“That sounds good,” Anita responded. “Let’s seal the deal for tomorrow.”
We set a meeting for 5 p.m., but due to the immediate danger to the child, Africa Eye notified the police, who organized a sting operation to arrest Anita and rescue the baby once the buyer met with her. This was likely the last opportunity to secure the baby girl before she vanished.
However, Anita never appeared, and despite our efforts over several days, we could not locate her. Weeks later, Emma finally tracked her down, but Anita had already found a higher bidder and used the money to construct a two-room, tin-sheet house in one of the city’s slums. The child was gone, and the police continue to have an open file on Anita.
“Suppose we do this”
Reliable statistics on child trafficking in Kenya are scarce—no government reports or comprehensive national surveys exist. The agencies responsible for locating missing children and tracking the black market are underfunded and understaffed. One of the few lifelines for mothers whose children have been taken is Missing Child Kenya, an NGO founded and led by Maryana Munyendo.
In its four years of operation, the organization has worked on approximately 600 cases, according to Munyendo. She lamented the lack of attention given to this issue, despite its significant presence in Kenya. “This is a very big issue in Kenya but is underreported. At Missing Child Kenya, we have barely scratched the surface,” she explained. The issue has not been prioritized in social welfare action response plans, partly because the victims are often vulnerable, voiceless women like Rebecca. They lack the resources and social connections needed to attract media attention or prompt action from the authorities.
Munyendo noted that the underreporting is closely tied to the economic status of the victims. “They lack the resources, networks, and information to be able to go somewhere and say, ‘Hey, can someone follow up on my missing child?'”
The driving force behind the black market is the enduring cultural stigma surrounding infertility. “Infertility is not a good thing for a woman in an African marriage,” Munyendo pointed out. “You are expected to have a child, and it should be a boy. If you can’t, you might get kicked out of your home. So what do you do? You steal a child.”
Women facing this situation are likely to be put in touch with a trafficker like Anita’s boss, who recruits vulnerable individuals like Anita to snatch children from the streets. Alternatively, they might be connected with someone who has access to a hospital.
According to Africa Eye’s research, child trafficking rings are operating within some of Nairobi’s largest government-run hospitals. Through a source, we approached Fred Leparan, a clinical social worker at Mama Lucy Kibaki hospital, who is responsible for safeguarding the well-being of vulnerable children born at the hospital. However, our source claimed that Leparan was directly involved in trafficking. The source arranged a meeting with Leparan and informed him of a woman desperately seeking to purchase a child after struggling to conceive.
“I have this baby boy in the hospital,” Leparan replied. “They dropped him off two weeks ago and never came back.”
According to our source, this was not Leparan’s first time arranging the sale of a child. “The last case scared me,” Leparan revealed during our recorded meeting. “Suppose we do this, I want a plan that won’t cause us problems later on.”
Children like the abandoned baby boy offered by Leparan should be placed in a government children’s home while they are officially assigned to foster parents who have undergone background checks and welfare assessments. When they are illegally sold by individuals like Fred Leparan, nobody can be certain of their fate.
Posing as a woman named Rose, an undercover reporter working for Africa Eye met Leparan at an office close to the hospital. Leparan asked a few casual questions about Rose’s status. She claimed to be married but unable to conceive and under pressure from her husband’s family to have a child.
“Have you tried adoption?” Leparan inquired.
“We considered it, but it seems complicated,” Rose replied.
With that, Leparan agreed to proceed. The price for the child would be 300,000 shillings, equivalent to £2,000.
“If we go ahead with this deal, it will only involve the three of us—me, you, and him,” Leparan stated, pointing to Rose and our source. “My concern is trust. It’s very risky, and it worries me a lot.”
He promised to reach out to arrange the sale.
Adama’s Choice
Between the street snatchers like Anita and the corrupt officials like Leparan, there is another layer to Nairobi’s child trafficking enterprise. In some of the city’s slums, illegal street clinics equipped with delivery rooms for expectant mothers can be found. These makeshift clinics have become known locations for the black-market trade in babies.
Working in collaboration with a local journalist, Judith Kanaitha of Ghetto Radio, Africa Eye approached a clinic in Nairobi’s Kayole neighborhood, home to thousands of the city’s most impoverished residents. According to Kanaitha, the trade in babies is thriving in Kayole.
The clinic we visited is operated by a woman known as Mary Auma, who claimed to have previously worked as a nurse in some of Nairobi’s largest hospitals. Kanaitha posed as a prospective buyer. Inside the clinic, two pregnant women were already in labor.
“This one here is eight-and-a-half months pregnant, almost ready to deliver,” Auma whispered. She offered to sell the unborn child to Kanaitha for 45,000 shillings, approximately £315.
Auma displayed no concern for the mother’s welfare after the birth. “Once she gets her money, she will leave,” Auma said, waving her hand dismissively. “We make it clear, they never return.”
The harrowing accounts described in the essay reveal the disturbing reality of child trafficking in Nairobi and the depths to which some individuals will go to exploit the vulnerability of homeless mothers and desperate parents. Africa Eye’s investigation sheds light on the urgent need for more comprehensive measures and resources to combat this grave issue and protect vulnerable children and families from falling victim to child trafficking.
