A human traf­fick­ing hotbed is located in North­ern Kenya. Many head to South Africa and are shipped there for either hopes for a bet­ter life, forced labor, or for sex­ual exploitation.

From this arti­cle from Kenya’s Daily Nation, writer Abdul­lahi Jamaa reveals some of the meth­ods that human traf­fick­ers use.

And here in the North, the scale of human traf­fick­ing is alarm­ing. “Traf­fick­ing of peo­ple is very ram­pant here. It is a multi-million dol­lar busi­ness that is get­ting bold in much of the Great lakes and Horn of Africa region,” says Mr Abdul­lahi Hirsi, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of North­ern Her­itage, a local aid agency in Garissa.

“In the past few years alone, because of droughts, we have seen a huge num­ber of eco­nomic refugees tar­geted by human traf­fick­ers with a promise of bet­ter life else­where,” he said. A spot-check in Garissa, Wajir and Man­dera shows that the ille­gal busi­ness is con­ducted daily, final arrange­ments done in Nairobi.

“In Garissa, at least five per­sons are traf­ficked in each of the more than 10 buses ply­ing the route to Nairobi. You can imag­ine the num­ber of peo­ple on sale every­day — more than 50,” says an anti-trafficking activist who sought anonymity due to secu­rity rea­sons. “This depicts a com­pletely wor­ry­ing picture.”

Nairobi’s’ East­leigh has been the hub of the inter­na­tion­ally denounced trade. Eco­nomic and con­flict refugees from Soma­lia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya are sold in the sprawl­ing com­mer­cial cen­tre to move to other coun­tries. “East­leigh is a con­nec­tion point for most vic­tims. It is where the jour­ney starts and it is where most monies exchange hands,” says Amina Kinsi of Ngazi Moja Foun­da­tion, a lobby group in Eastleigh.

Accord­ing to a recent report released by US State Depart­ment in June 2009, Kenya is a source, tran­sit and a des­ti­na­tion coun­try for men, women and chil­dren traf­ficked for the pur­pose of bet­ter lives, forced labour and sex­ual exploita­tion. Vic­tims take tedious routes to South Africa and some­times to some Euro­pean coun­tries. Traf­fick­ers make mil­lions of dol­lars every month by arrang­ing and direct­ing the jour­ney to South Africa. Some vic­tims end their trav­els with shock­ing deaths.

The cheap­est ille­gal migra­tion goes well over $600 while the most expen­sive takes more than $2,000 for a jour­ney that some­times takes sev­eral months. “Some­times, you become stranded in a town where you know no one. I spent more than a week in Zam­bia as I had run out of cash,” said Farah, who returned from South Africa at the height of Xeno­pho­bia against Somalis.

“I reached Johan­nes­burg after more than three weeks of jour­ney­ing. It was the worst jour­ney ever for me.” The car­tel of human traf­fick­ers usu­ally col­lect per-head fee at every entry point of these coun­tries. “Traf­fick­ers use unmanned bor­der towns, often meet­ing with lit­tle police and secu­rity restric­tions,” says Mr Hirsi of North­ern Heritage.

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