Sexual tourism in Kenya? Italians are in the lead, according to a UNICEF report recently published in Nairobi. Italians, Germans, and Swiss hold the top three places among the nations exploiting underage prostitution in the coastal regions of Kenya. It is difficult to root out, because it feeds a flourishing industry that brings in tens of millions of dollars into the country every year.

The Data. The statistics in the UNICEF report are shocking: in the four coastal districts of Kenya (Mombassa, Kilifi, Malindi, and Kwale), 15,000 girls between 12 and 18, making up 30% of the population of that age group, are occasional prostitutes, while three thousand work as prostitutes full time. Other than the Italians (18%), Germans (14%), and Swiss (12%), another 38% of their clients are local men, a figure that has provoked alarm among the authorities. The sex industry doesn’t involve only tourists, although their arrival has led to a boom in services that exploit underage prostitution. In 2005 the overall income from tourism in Kenya came to 648 million dollars, a jump of 15% over the previous year.

Obstacles. It won’t be easy to contain the phenomenon. The mirage of easy income drives hordes of young women from the interior to the coastal areas, where they earn up to $80 per night, which they send back to their families. Often, the parents themselves send their daughters into the industry, where they are recruited to work in clubs frequented by foreigners. In recent years the authorities have passed a series of laws to guarantee the rights of minors and to punish those who exploit them for sex. In order to be effective, the measures should require the participation of the clubs and tourist hotels to monitor their guests, Kenyans included. But there are frequent stories of young girls sent to guests as a “welcoming gift.”

Cooperation. Under such circumstances, the efforts by local NGOs to save the girls amount to a drop in the ocean. The enforcement picture is dim as well: the few tourists who are arrested usually obtain quick release through large bribes to police and judges. The government of Mwai Kibaki, currently at the center of endless financial scandals, has so far devoted little attention to the problem of sex tourism, even though it adds to the spread of AIDS and drugs in the coastal areas. Will the European states who provide most of the customers collaborate with concerned local authorities to staunch the flow? Rome, Berlin, and Bern have been notified.