Wetangula: BBC exposé on child trafficking aimed at tarnishing Kenya’s image
By Steve Ireri, August 13, 2025National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula has dismissed the BBC Africa Eye documentary “MADAMS: Exposing Kenya’s Child Sex Trade” as a deliberate smear campaign, claiming that its primary purpose was to blemish Kenya’s reputation rather than expose any genuine truths.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, August 13, 2025, Wetangula said that he had personally watched the exposé and found no credible revelations, only a calculated attempt to cast Kenya in a negative light.
“In fact, if you listen to that BBC so-called exposé like I did, the purpose was not to bring any fact to the fore, the purpose was to besmirch the country. If you listen to it carefully, it was not meant to expose anything; it was meant to besmirch the country and more so an African person,” Wetangula said.
Wetangula’s remarks came after Gilgil MP Martha Wanjira Wanjiru posed a series of probing questions to Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, who had also rubbished the exposé as false.
The legislator challenged the Cabinet Secretary to clarify whether the documentary’s claims were factual, particularly on the issue of underage girls allegedly being trafficked for sex.
“So, Mr Speaker, the CS can tell first of all, are you confirming that there were no underage children that were actually for real in this trade, and secondly, there were some two women who were implicated in that exposé. Have they been arrested? It is important. And finally, the issue of BBC payouts brings another issue of media ethics. If we have a reporter in this country using money to get falsified information, what does that mean in terms of our laws? I would like to know if any specific action has been taken against these specific reporters, if they for real falsified this,” Wanjiru stated.
Her questions followed Murkomen’s categorical dismissal of the documentary’s findings.
He described the BBC piece as fake, insisting that those interviewed had admitted to fabricating their stories at the behest of the investigative journalists.
“Four people, Neema, Selina, Mary Nyambura and Njeri, who had been interviewed in the BBC documentary posing as victims of child sexual exploitation, as well as Millicent Muturi Wairimu, the chairlady of commercial sex workers in Mai Mahiu Township, upon investigation stated that they had been approached by BBC investigative journalists who requested them to identify vulnerable girls aged between 17 years and 19 for a purported foreign sponsorship programme,” Murkomen told the House.
The Cabinet Secretary further revealed that on August 7, 2025, the investigative team summoned Lucy Njoroge, alias Baby Girl, a former commercial sex worker now working with a non-governmental organisation based at Karagita Health Centre.
Lucy had featured prominently in the documentary, claiming to rescue and assist street girls.
Murkomen maintained that the so-called victims had disowned the claims made in the footage, portraying the documentary as a work of manipulation rather than factual journalism.
“On Thursday, August 7, 2025, the team summoned Lucy Njoroge, alias Baby Girl, a former commercial sex worker who now works with a non-governmental organisation based at Karagita Health Centre. Lucy had been featured in the documentary, where she claimed to rescue and assist street girls,” Murkomen added.
The BBC documentary, which has stirred intense public and political debate, alleged that girls as young as 13 were being trafficked for sex in the Rift Valley town of Maai Mahiu, aided by women known as “madams”.
In the investigation, undercover reporters posed as aspiring madams, secretly filming encounters with women who admitted knowing the trade was illegal, yet allegedly introduced them to underage girls.
According to the BBC, all evidence was handed to the Kenyan police in March 2025, but no arrests had been made at the time of broadcast, with officers claiming they could not trace the women or the minors filmed.