From Thailand, the Philippines and Brazil to Kenya, sex tourism is common in developing countries where poverty and discrimination push millions of women into commercial sexual exploitation.
Kenya is no different.
But the extent to which child prostitution is not only prevalent but also socially accepted in towns and villages along the East African coast has left local authorities and charities struggling to halt the illicit trade.
Sex tourism has also gone into hiding behind the doors of sleek upscale apartments owned by foreigners.
Parents and pimps convince or force minors to sleep with foreign tourists for money, maybe for school fees or to pay bills.
Once many minors are introduced, they become addicted to transactional sex.
In the Coastal region, the child sex trade has become so widely accepted that girls no longer just have sex with tourists for money, but also with local men for anything from a ride home to a pair of shoes or even a bag of sugar.
Parents readily introduce their children to sex tourism and minors become the breadwinners for the family.
The Tourist police are very corrupt. They do not arrest foreigners who sexually exploit children.
The tourists take advantage of the poverty along the Coast and corrupt officials who readily take bribes to sweep reported cases under the carpet or ensure nothing is reported.
Police should monitor villas owned by foreigners — this is where hidden molestation takes place.
European travellers especially have continued to fuel the trade. Many come in search of girls aged between 12 and 18. The industry has made Kenya one of the world's hubs for child sex tourism
Trace Kenya, a local nonprofit group that works with the United Nations to battle child trafficking, estimates there could be as many as 100,000 child sex workers in Mombasa. The trade extends up and down the coast to the seaside resort towns of Malindi and Diani, according to the NGO.
Sex tourism has been blamed in Kenya for increasing rates of school dropouts, poverty and illiteracy as school-age children skip class in pursuit of easy money.
The rapid response officer for Muslims for Human Rights spoke to the Star
