One in four internally displaced persons (IDP) surveyed in Kenya has been a victim or witness of human trafficking, the majority lured to the Middle East but then forced to do menial work or sexually exploited, an anti-trafficking charity said on Tuesday.
People who were displaced during Kenya’s 2007/8 post-election violence were most at risk, the charity’s researchers found, particularly those who live close to a major highway or local trading centre.
"As traffickers tend to look for people who are desperate and with an uncertain future, they often target IDP communities," HAART, a Kenyan charity that gives trafficking victims psychological and economic support, said in a study.
"They give false promises such as non-existent opportunities for jobs or education.
"Traffickers posed as job agents in 88 percent of cases, researchers found, and two-thirds of their victims were women.
"We have a group of people who were taken to Saudi Arabia under the false pretext that they were going to be employed," one respondent told the researchers.
"Some were being sexually harassed; for others, the jobs that they were made to do were not what they expected."
Sexual exploitation was the second most common result of the trafficking, affecting 25 percent of those trafficked.
People who were displaced during Kenya’s 2007/8 post-election violence were most at risk, the charity’s researchers found, particularly those who live close to a major highway or local trading centre.
"As traffickers tend to look for people who are desperate and with an uncertain future, they often target IDP communities," HAART, a Kenyan charity that gives trafficking victims psychological and economic support, said in a study.
"They give false promises such as non-existent opportunities for jobs or education.
"Traffickers posed as job agents in 88 percent of cases, researchers found, and two-thirds of their victims were women.
"We have a group of people who were taken to Saudi Arabia under the false pretext that they were going to be employed," one respondent told the researchers.
"Some were being sexually harassed; for others, the jobs that they were made to do were not what they expected."
Sexual exploitation was the second most common result of the trafficking, affecting 25 percent of those trafficked.
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