The baby stealers: A mother’s story

One month ago, BBC Africa Eye released an investigation into child trafficking that sent shockwaves throughout Kenya.

The film revealed a thriving underground market in children that stretched from the slums of Nairobi to some of the country’s biggest government hospitals. The traffickers exposed in the film have either been arrested or are on the run.

Many of the children featured in the film were stolen. But others were willingly sold by their own mothers to traffickers, often for paltry sums.

This thriving underground trade in new-born babies is shrouded in secrecy.

But during the investigation, one young woman, Klenice, bravely waived her anonymity in the hope that by telling her story, she may be able to help others.

The BBC undercover reporter first met Klenice at an underground clinic in the Nairobi slum of Kayole.

A trafficker named Mary Auma tried to sell her baby to the undercover reporter, even before it had left the womb. The trafficker had offered Klenice just $90 for her child, but tried to sell it to the reporter for almost five times more.

But as her baby was being sold, Klenice escaped the clutches of the baby traders and managed to find a safe home for her child and take the first steps to a new life.

“The Baby Stealers-A Mother’s Story” follows the journey of one woman and her baby, trapped between poverty and the traffickers.

Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/n7r0ZmQnhHg