Last month, BBC Africa Eye exposed a thriving black-market trade in babies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Police arrested seven people on trafficking charges in response to the story, but what about the women on the other side of these illegal deals? What drives a mother to sell her child for £70?
Adama arrived in Nairobi and began by selling watermelon on the street, but it didn't pay enough and her housemate stole any money she left at home. Life in the city was hard, too. She has a scar at the top of her forehead, just under her cropped hair, from defending herself. "Some men were playing with me and it reached a point I had to fight back," she said.
The traffickers pay shockingly low sums. Sarah was 17 when she fell pregnant with her second child, with no means to support the baby, she said. She sold him to a woman who offered her 3,000 Kenyan shillings - about £20. "I've heard so many stories of women and girls in this situation. Young women are coming into cities looking for jobs, getting into relationships, conceiving, and being abandoned by the father of their child," said Prudence Mutiso, a Kenyan human rights lawyer who specialises in child protection and reproductive rights.
"On a good day I would be lucky to get food," she said. "Sometimes I would just drink water, pray, and sleep."When a woman finds herself in Adama's position in Kenya, several factors can converge to push them into the hands of traffickers. Abortion is illegal unless the life of the mother or the child is at risk, leaving only dangerous unlicensed alternatives on the table.
"I was so stressed, I started thinking how I would commit suicide by drowning myself, so people could just forget about me."
Horrific, religion which won't allow abortion but allow a child to be a product, I know that my life will never compare with the lives of those women and it is difficult to understand in the West, desperate people take desperate measures I guess.
bbc spread hate
show black in bad light ,bbc agenda always
Too sad!
Another race story from the BBC (Black Broadcasting Corporation)...
That's what they might start doing in Poland after the law that was passed recently, making abortions illegal...
The truth is, women in countries like Kenya have no real choices at all and if child trafficking is the consequence of women having no autonomy over their bodies, then we need to go back to the drawing board. Horrible situation for women (not men of course they just walk out!)
We in America have so many choices, help when needed most often. I am so sad about choices some mothers in other countries have to make for their children, but still choose life. God bless all mothers who out of love for their children choose life.
I blame Madonna and Angelina.
So heartbreaking.🥲
they say lifes cheap but this takes the biscuit shocking
A choice? Really? Sometimes there is no choice. Let's address the root of the problem shall we?
Cry.
Every market in Kenya is a black market...