Kenyan women held as sex slaves in Somalia

Kenyan women are forced into marriages and sex slavery in Somalia, a United Nation’s report says.

The report says that women from the Coast region are the most targeted. They are lured with promises of a job but instead end up in forced marriages and sex slavery.

“The women were deceived with false promises of a job but instead kept captive and exploited in marriage and sexual slavery,” reads part of the report dubbed Trafficking in persons in the context of armed conflict. The report was prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The traffickers take advantage of the vulnerability and desperation of the women and children, promise them greener pastures only to damn them to a life of slavery and violence.

“Armed groups active in this environment abduct and coerce women into sexual slavery and recruit children for use in combat or support roles,” the report further reads.

A group of women was in 2017 recruited from the Coast of Kenya and transported into a region controlled by the Al Shabaab in Somalia.

Refugees fleeing from the violence-prone regions are also prone to being subjected to sex slavery and the children being recruited into armed combat.

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