From Asia to Africa: Women trafficked to Kenya’s Bollywood-style
dance bars
Published: August 08, 2019
THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION
MOMBASA: Nepali
beautician Sheela didn’t think twice about ditching her salon job when she
received a call offering seven times her salary to work as a cultural dancer at
a nightclub in Kenya.
It didn’t
matter that the 23-year-old woman from a village in the Himalayan foothills had
never heard of the East African nation. Or that she had no experience as a
dancer, had never met the owner of the club, and was not shown an employment
contract.
With
elderly parents to care for and medical bills to clear after her brother
suffered a motorbike accident, the offer of 60,000 Kenyan shillings ($600)
monthly, with food, housing and transport costs all covered, was a no-brainer
for Sheela.
“(But) it
was not what I expected,” said Sheela, who was rescued with 11 other Nepali
women from a nightclub in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa in April where she
danced on stage from 9 pm to 4 am 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,” added
Sheela, who did not want to give her real name, at a safe house in Mombasa’s
Shanzu suburb.
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’s adult
entertainment industry – many illegally – according to anti-trafficking
activists and police.
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. There were no comparison numbers available.
To date,
there have been few prosecutions to raise awareness about what authorities fear
is a growing trend, but April’s rescue and subsequent arrest threw a spotlight
on the issue.
SPOTLIGHT
ON RISING TREND
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.
The
Canadian-British national 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.
He is
currently on bail awaiting the next court hearing with no date yet set.
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.
Sheela
and the other women rescued from the Mombasa club told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation they had not been forced to have sex with customers.
Anita
Nyanjong, a lawyer for human rights group Equality Now, said it was hard to get
to the truth as survivors of trafficking often would not admit what had
happened.
“Most
victims come from poor conservative families and there are shame and stigma
attached to this kind of thing,” she said.
“Even
though victims may have been forced or duped into sex work, they may be
convinced by traffickers not to speak … told they will be arrested for
prostitution if they admit it.”
In Kenya,
many local women and girls are promised good jobs only to be enslaved in
domestic servitude or forced into prostitution – often in the sex tourism
industry.
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.
POLICE
RAIDS
But in
recent years police raids on mujra bars – named after a traditional Asian dance
– uncovered organised human trafficking from South Asia to Kenya, a trend
highlighted by the United States in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP)
report.
“The
raids have helped us understand the modus operandi of traffickers in Kenya who
have agents overseas to recruit women for them,” an official from Kenya’s
Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said on condition of anonymity.
“They are
offered jobs as cultural dancers and given around one month’s salary in
advance. But when they arrive, their movements are restricted and they have to
do erotic and sexually explicit dancing – and often have to have sex with
clients.”
Such
victims enter Kenya either on a three-month tourist visa on arrival for South
Asians or on a special temporary work permit for cultural performers, according
to the DCI official.
Sheela
and the other 11 women rescued in Mombasa said they had come to Kenya
separately over the past nine months on flights through India and Ethiopia
arranged by the club owner.
In court
testimonies, the women, aged 16 to 34, said they were told to carry hand
luggage only and tell immigration officials they were visiting friends or
family in Kenya.
The women
worked every night, were given stage names, and were 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
told the court their passports were taken and they did not know the location of
the club or their accommodation.
Paul
Adhoch, head of Trace Kenya, a charity that provided shelter to the group of
12, said the women did not identify as victims but their treatment suggested
otherwise.
“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,” he said.
The women
were repatriated to Nepal in July.
“This
whole thing has been terrible,” said Sonia, 24, who did 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.”
