Need For Comprehensive and Effective Regulatory Frameworks To Combat Trafficking of Child Domestic Labourers in Kenya

Abstract

Children all over the world continue to be victims of violence and exploitation in the home, at school or within their community, the very settings that are supposed to provide a protective environment for them. Thus, children are to be found working in agriculture, hawking in the streets, being trafficked into prostitution and domestic labor, while others are being sexually abused at home and in schools. This is happening despite the fact that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) states that all children have the right to be protected against all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse, including sexual abuse and exploitation. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under target 16.2 also aims at ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against children by 2030.Human trafficking is a prevalent global issue, with millions of individuals, particularly women and children, being exploited for various purposes. In Kenya, trafficking poses a significant threat, especially to children who are recruited for exploitation. The United Nations Protocol defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception for purposes of exploitation. The Protocol further goes ahead to give examples of exploitation to include the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.