Karua demands arrests after BBC Exposé on child trafficking in Maai Mahiu
By Nancy Marende, August 6, 2025People’s Liberation Party (PLP) leader Martha Karua has called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of individuals and networks implicated in the child sex trafficking trade exposed in a recent BBC documentary centred on Maai Mahiu, Nakuru County.
In a statement on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, Karua condemned state institutions for failing to protect vulnerable children and respond decisively to the growing crisis.
“This BBC documentary is heartbreaking and a serious indictment of systemic failure. A failure by state institutions to protect the most vulnerable and to act swiftly and decisively. Children as young as 12 are being trafficked, abused and discarded right here in Kenya! Outrage is not enough. We need urgent justice and reform,” read the statement in part.
“We demand that all individuals and networks implicated in these trafficking rings be arrested and prosecuted! There should be zero protection for predators, regardless of their status.”
Her remarks follow public outrage after a BBC Africa Eye investigation revealed how girls as young as 13 are being trafficked for sex in Kenya, with the help of women known as “madams”.
In the documentary, two undercover investigators, posing as sex workers wanting to learn how to become madams, spent months in early 2025 infiltrating the sex trade in the town.
Their secret filming reveals two different women who say they know it is illegal and then introduce the investigators to underage girls in the sex industry.
The BBC gave all its evidence to the Kenyan police in March. The BBC believes the madams have moved location since then. The police said the women and young girls we filmed could not be traced. To date, there have been no arrests.
The exposé
The BBC’s grainy footage filmed on the street in the dark showed one woman, who calls herself Nyambura, laughing as she says: “They’re still children, so it’s easy to manipulate them by just handing them sweets.”
“Prostitution is a cash crop in Maai Mahiu; the truckers basically fuel it. And that’s how we benefit. It’s been normalised in Maai Mahiu,” she explained, adding that she had one girl as young as 13, who had already been “working” for six months.
“It becomes very risky when you’re dealing with minors. You can’t just bring them out openly in town. I only sneak them out at night in great secrecy,” Nyambura said.
When asked whether the clients wear condoms, Nyambura said she usually made sure they had protection but the odd one did not.
“Some children want to earn more [so don’t use them]. Some are forced [not to use them],” she said.
In another meeting, she led the undercover investigator to a house where three young girls sat huddled on a sofa, another on a hard-backed chair.
Nyambura then left the room, allowing the investigator to speak to the girls alone.
They described being repeatedly abused for sex daily.
“Sometimes you have sex with multiple people. The clients force you to do unimaginable things,” said one of the girls.
A second undercover investigator gained the trust of a woman who called herself Cheptoo and had multiple meetings with her.
She said selling young girls meant she could “earn a living and be comfortable”.
“You carry out this kind of business in great secrecy because it is illegal,” she said.
“If anyone says they want a young girl, I ask them to pay me. We also have our regulars who always come back for them.”
Cheptoo took the undercover investigator to a club to meet four of her girls. The youngest said she was 13 years old. The others said they were 15.
She opened up about the profit she makes from them, saying that for every Ksh3,000, the girls deliver, her share was Ksh2,500.