REVEALED: How Married Men Rent Out Their Wives, Children To Rich Tourists
The Kenyan Coast is sitting on a time bomb, with tourists visiting the destination ostensibly to have sex with married women and children.
According to reports, to beat the rising levels of poverty along the Kenyan Coast, some residents (especially married men) now rent out their spouses and children to rich tourists who want a good time, for some income.
Among the persons already in the job is James Kimani, a tour guide, who says that he has been renting his wife out for such since August 2018, in pursuit for that extra coin. According to him, it began when a tourist asked for his help to get a Kenyan woman with whom he was to spend his time with in Kenya, and due to the poverty, he handed over his wife of over 10 years.
“Why should I make another woman rich yet my wife is jobless?” he asked.
However, he says, he had to pass her out as his sister to make her acceptable to the man.
“After giving it a thought I said, ‘Yes I have a nice, bubbly woman. She is dark-skinned, well endowed and naughty. She is my younger sister, very single and well behaved. I can bring her tomorrow,” James reportedly told the white man.
“We still love each other, we are still married and she supports this family. She is the breadwinner.”
James hooked his wife up recently with an Austrian man and she has been away from home for two months. He said:
“All’s well. I trust she will come back. The longer she stays the more money she brings home. Meanwhile, am taking care of the children as she hustles.”
One of the county police bosses, Patrick Okeri said such cases are common, adding that it has grown to an extent that some women even have two husbands, a European and their original Kenyan husbands.
The women travel abroad to see their European husbands who happen to be their sponsors. When they come back to Kenya they settle with their local husband.
“Recently there was a case of a woman with two husbands, a foreigner and a Kenyan. She shares her house with the foreign husband when he comes to Kenya and when he leaves the country her Kenyan husband comes back home, ” Okeri said.
Paul Adhuoch, who heads child rights organization Trace Kenya, said 13,000 minors engage in sex tourism in the coastal counties annually. He said:
“The lowest age of girls 11 years while for boys it’s 13 years. About 60 per cent of the victims are girls.”
Adhuoch said prostitution has led to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The latest records highlighted Kilifi as the county with the second-highest percentage of pregnant minors. Other coastal towns have a high prevalence of HIV.
“This shows the gravity of child sex tourism,” Adhouch said.
He said Ukunda, Malindi, Watamu, Mtwapa and Kilifi are hotspots for sex tourism but the trade extends throughout the Coast, including Diani. The main causes of sex tourism are the tourist themselves and poverty.
“Tourists are the main drivers — Many of whom are drawn to the Coast by the area’s reputation for sex tourism. Poverty is also a major contributor,” Adhuoch said.
Muslims for Human Rights rapid response officer Francis Auma said rich foreigners own apartments at the Coast, managed by residents.
“In those apartments owned by Europeans a lot happens that goes unnoticed. This is where children are molested but the government does not make efforts to monitor these homes,” Auma said.
Auma said in some cases minors are molested and sold.
“At Mtwapa children are sold off to tourists in the evening. The cases are swept under the carpet for the foreigners are rich and can corrupt the system,” Auma said.
He said Auma said the Tourist police have done little to fight the vice. They give tourists a pass despite having evidence against them.
Mtwapa police boss Joseph Muriuki said though the cases are many, few are reported. He said people, especially victims, fear coming out for fear of being victimised by their families, who sometimes depend on them.
“We cannot tell if someone is undergoing such torturous acts unless they come out and speak, then the security will act on the information,“ he said.
CHILD VICTIMS
A 17-year-old girl, Ann Kanini does not mince words when asked why she tours eaches in Malindi, Watamu, Kilifi and Mtwapa.
“To look for Mzungu’s( Europeans) for transactional sex,” she replied giggling over a tot of tequila. “It’s very simple to lure a white man, approach them with compliments designed to break the ice.”
“The money will begin to flow,” she said, referring to payments once a temporary relationship has begun. “Most village girls do it. I can get Sh3,000 to Sh5,000 a day. Sometimes a tourist will give Sh10,000. ”
Kanini said it is important to learn foreign languages especially Italian and German to prosper in the lucrative business.
“First, know the language he speaks. Second, tell him he is the most handsome man you have ever seen. For the first time in years, he truly believes he is desirable.”
Kanini was in Form 2 in 2017 when her father asked her to drop out in school and help him hustle. She recounts:
“My father was struggling with paying my school fees so when he said he will show me ways to hustle for money. I was overjoyed, I saw it as a shortcut to success.”
After she quit school, her father (a beach boy) got her a job as a curio seller at Watamu beach.
“I was so happy my job entailed approaching tourists along the beach, convincing them to buy cowrie shells and necklaces. I earned between Sh200 and Sh1,000,” she said.
Her father, however, planned to introduce her to the sex trade. On a Sunday afternoon, as Kanini sold her cowrie shells to tourists at the beach, her father walked up to her.
“That Italian man with blue shorts loves you. You have captured his attention,” her father said.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, not understanding his meaning.
Her father drew her aside and told her he intended to introduce her to a lucrative business that would earn her Sh5,000 a day.
“The business was sex and the deal was I would be assisting in paying water and electricity bills for our house. Then the rest of the money was mine. I trust my father so I gave in to the idea,” she said.
My father told me not to tell anyone he hooks me up with that he is my father. She said:
“He said I refer to him as my good friend. I panicked and was very disgusted when I had sex with the Italian at a cottage. He was the age of my grandfather and couldn’t stop coughing and sneezing.”
The Italian, however, paid her the Sh10,000, more money than she had ever seen.
“I had never touched such an amount before. The business was surely lucrative. I abandoned selling of curios to concentrate on selling sex,” she said.
In a good month, she receives a client every day. Most of the tourists in Malindi , she said, come from Italy and their clients are mostly Italian men between the age of 50 and 80, she said.
“My father taught me Italian so it was easy to communicate with the clients he hooked me up with,” she said.
Kanini learnt German as well and two years later she does not need her father to hook her up anymore.
“I can speak foreign languages, I am courageous and approach them for sex,” she said.
She said the business has led her to build a home for a family in a very short time.
“I can’t stop selling sex to tourists. I am the breadwinner in our family,” she said.
PIMPS
Local men and women who are well connected are used to visiting poor villages and recruiting minors.
“They approach parents and promise them money in exchange of their children,” a source said.
Most parents readily accept the deal and force their children to have sex with clients in order to earn their school fees. The cartels take the minors to apartments where they hook them up with the tourists. The money is sometimes shared among cartels and their parents, the children get nothing.
Source: KenyanNews