CHILD VICTIMS

Seventeen-year-old 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.

"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," she recounts.

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.

"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," she said.

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.