Mombasa county has continued to record a high number of children living on the streets and engaging in commercial sex.
The children's department has called on the county government to come up with a policy that will protect children and take them back to school.
Department coordinator Philip Nzenge said the number of young girls doing commercial sex work is high, adding that it escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic when schools were closed.
“We have so many cases of young girls doing commercial sex work and most of them are being sent by their parents, the cases have been high during the pandemic because parents do not have any source of income,” he said.
Nzenge said the county in cooperation with other organisations, started an initiative called She Leads, a programme which intends to help the girl child to know her rights and how to protect herself.
“As a county, we have been doing sensitisation of children issues in the community and have partnered with non-governmental organisations like Tujitegemee, which help us in reaching out to these girls,” he said.
The coordinator said the county is putting up income-generating ventures to help parents get a source of income to provide for their families and in turn tame poverty.
“The best thing is to work together as a community and identify the needs of one another," he said.
Nzenge said the county government should come up with a policy to remove the families from the streets because this contributes to the increasing numbers of commercial sex workers among children.
“The increase of street families is a serious problem in our region and therefore there is a need for our government to come up with a law to remove the families from the streets to protect the children," he said.
He said the government should come up with a better way of helping the vulnerable.
Discrimination and stigma from the community have also contributed to some girls preferring to stay on the streets than going back home.
Catherine Simiyu, a programme coordinator at a rescue centre in Mombasa said in most cases, children involved in sex work are always discriminated against in the community, thus creating a stigma against children who at the end of the day do not want to go back home.
“The community in many cases discriminates these children when they learn that they are involved in commercial sexual activities, as an organisation, we are trying to counsel these families, which is always a hard task and might take one year for them to accept the children back,” she said.
She said Mombasa and Kilifi are the most affected in the coastal region because of poverty and lack of exposure.
“People need to stop treating children as commodities, these are people who also have feelings and when we mistreat them and trample on their rights, things will change,” she said.
Simiyu said the community should change their mindset towards children and do more awareness for them to know their rights because they are not empowered.
Asha Seif, a social worker in a Mombasa rescue centre said in most cases, the children engaging in sex work are pushed into it by poverty and pressure from their parents.
She said the organisation has partnered with other NGOs in empowering women by helping them set up businesses. This, she said, will help them provide for their families and keep their children off the streets.
“Parents need income-generating activities for them not to depend on children, we have managed to work with other organisations to empower, train and educate women especially in Kilifi, where poverty cases are high,” she said.
Seif said many women have benefited from the initiative, adding that she believes if this is done widely, it will help end the problem.
She said commercial sex work among young girls has led to dropping out of school, adding that there is a need for the county government to take action to protect the children.
-Edited by SKanyara
