This archive report was first published on 9 August 2019.
Kenya: Women Trafficked to Dance Bars ¶
Published on August 9, 2019
Sheela, a 23-year-old Nepali woman, thought she had landed her dream job when she received a call offering her a salary seven times higher than her current job as a beautician in Nepal. The job was to work as a cultural dancer at a nightclub in Kenya, where she would earn 60,000 Kenyan shillings ($600) monthly, with food, housing, and transport costs covered.
However, Sheela's experience was far from what she had expected. She was rescued along with 11 other Nepali women from a nightclub in Mombasa, Kenya's coastal city, in April. They had been forced to dance on stage from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., getting tips from male clients.
"I was told that being escorted everywhere by the driver, not leaving the flat except for work, and not having my passport or phone, was for my safety," Sheela said at a safe house in Mombasa's Shanzu suburb.
Sheela and the other women told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they had not been forced to have sex with customers. However, they were forced to dance and engage in sex work, and were given stage names and expected to earn about $4,000 each per month in tips.
"We didn't get the tips as they were for the boss," said Meena, 20, who did not want to give her real name. "But the top performing girls would get bonuses of 20,000 shillings ($200), 30,000 ($300), and 50,000 ($500) if they met their targets."
The women were repatriated to Nepal in July, but their experience has left a lasting impact. "This whole thing has been terrible," said Sonia, 24, who did not want to give her real name, the day before she left. "I should never have come - it was a mistake. All I want to do is go home. I never come to Kenya again."
The case highlights the growing trend of human trafficking from South Asia to Kenya's adult entertainment industry. According to anti-trafficking activists and police, a rising number of women and girls are leaving South Asian nations such as Nepal, India, and Pakistan to work in Bollywood-style dance bars in Kenya.
There is no official data on the numbers, but the results of police raids, combined with figures on repatriation of rescued women, suggest scores of women and underage girls are victims of organised human trafficking from South Asia to Kenya.
Latest figures from Nepal's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) showed 43 women and girls were repatriated from dance bars in Kenya and neighbouring Tanzania in 2016/17.
The owner of the Mombasa club, Asif Amirali Alibhai Jetha, was charged with three counts of human trafficking, accused of harbouring victims for the purpose of deception, using premises to promote trafficking, and confiscation of passports.
He denied the charges in court, pleading not guilty, saying the women were in Kenya of their own consent and legally employed as cultural dancers at a business with no erotic dancing or sexual exploitation.
Common in India, so-called mujra dance bars - where young women dance to Bollywood music for money from male patrons - have mushroomed in cities including Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu, where there are countless Kenyans of South Asian descent.
Police and anti-trafficking groups have repeatedly voiced concerns that some of these private clubs are used as a front to ensnare women and girls, some in sex slavery, with women forced to pay off loans by erotic dancing or having sex with clients.
"The way they were deceptively recruited, the under-the-radar manner in which they were brought into Kenya, restrictions on their freedoms and movements, their passports being taken - are all clear signs of human trafficking," said Paul Adhoch, head of Trace Kenya, a charity that provided shelter to the group of 12.
Kenya is home to about 328,000 modern-day slaves - about 1 in 143 of its population - according to the Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation, an Australia-based rights group.
