NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 30 – Kenya remains a major source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking despite notable progress in tackling the crime, according to the 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report released this week.
The report placed Kenya on Tier 2, noting that although the government has made “significant efforts,” it still falls short of the minimum standards required for elimination.
“The Government of Kenya does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so,” the report said.
Over the past year, authorities investigated forty-two new cases, nearly double the twenty-two reported in 2023.
Prosecutions rose to forty-four cases, with twenty-one convictions, a sharp increase from only three the previous year.
The government also identified 195 victims, including 154 Kenyans exploited abroad, and funded their repatriation.
For the first time, a partially state-run shelter was opened for trafficking survivors, staffed with trained personnel.
The government also partnered with NGOs to assist 321 victims, nearly double the number reached in 2023, while survivors, particularly those exploited in the Gulf states, were regularly engaged in shaping new policies.
Despite these gains, the report flagged critical shortcomings.
Protection services for adults remain minimal, shelters are scarce, and survivors often decline to testify due to fear of reprisals or lack of long-term support.
Allegations of official complicity persist, with no law enforcement action taken against complicit officials in 2024, even as evidence surfaced of police officers, magistrates, and embassy staff aiding traffickers or extorting victims.
Fraudulent labor recruiters continue to prey on Kenyans seeking jobs abroad, especially in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia remains the top destination, but conditions are dire: at least 274 Kenyan workers—mostly women—have died in Saudi Arabia over the past five years, including 55 in 2024 alone.
Women and children most vulnerable
The report found that women and children remain the most vulnerable. Children are forced into sex trafficking, farm and fishing labor, mining, cattle herding, and even criminal activities such as drug couriering.
Along porous borders, women and underage girls are smuggled from Uganda’s Karamoja region into Nairobi for sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.
In coastal counties like Kilifi and Kwale, NGOs estimate that more than 2,000 children are trapped in sex trafficking, with reports implicating local authorities and police officers as clients.
Kenya also remains a regional transit hub, with migrants from Ethiopia, Burundi, and Tanzania exploited locally or trafficked southwards.
Others are lured to Southeast Asia with false promises of lucrative jobs, only to end up in forced labor or cyber scams.
The TIP Report urged Kenya to strengthen protections for migrant workers abroad, including pre-departure training and better-equipped embassies, remove legal loopholes allowing fines instead of jail terms for sex trafficking, crack down on fraudulent recruitment agencies, and prosecute complicit officials fueling trafficking networks.
While acknowledging progress, the report warned that without stronger victim support, tougher enforcement, and tighter oversight of labor migration, Kenya will remain a trafficking hotspot in the region.
