:00:10. > :00:20.Mombasa, can you's bustling second city. -- Kenya. It is a magnet for
:00:21. > :00:25.people looking for work. There is a dark side, here. In a backstreet, a
:00:26. > :00:32.room of extra ordinary women need to share their stories.
:00:33. > :00:35.TRANSLATION: They would bring two or three men for each woman every
:00:36. > :00:43.night. We would be raped repeatedly. These women are the hidden face of a
:00:44. > :00:47.regional war that seems without end. For six years, the Kenyan army has
:00:48. > :00:54.been part of a force fighting the Islamist militants, al-Shabaab, in
:00:55. > :00:58.Somalia. Now, a disturbing development: The BBC has discovered
:00:59. > :01:03.that Kenyan women are being abducted and trafficked to become sex slaves
:01:04. > :01:06.for al-Shabaab. We speak to an insider, who reveals how they kidnap
:01:07. > :01:13.vulnerable women. TRANSLATION: They said, I want to
:01:14. > :01:18.take you to work. Then they hijacked me. To the forest. It is a growing
:01:19. > :01:22.problem that the Kenyan government seems to be ignoring. The few who do
:01:23. > :01:28.manage to escape are too frightened to talk openly. If anyone went to
:01:29. > :01:33.Somalia, however they went there, whether it was willingly or
:01:34. > :01:38.trafficked, they are being looked as terrorists. I've too can you's
:01:39. > :01:41.northern coast to see the secret trade in trafficked women, and to
:01:42. > :01:54.hear their horrifying story is told for the first time. -- Kenya's.
:01:55. > :02:11.The coastal city of Mombasa is predominantly Muslim.
:02:12. > :02:14.It's a city of more than a million people, with high unemployment,
:02:15. > :02:17.and it's always had an uneasy relationship with the government.
:02:18. > :02:20.Salama Ali, whose name has been changed to protect her identity,
:02:21. > :02:22.was born and raised here, an ordinary middle-aged woman
:02:23. > :02:28.But nine months ago, her life took an unexpected twist.
:02:29. > :02:32.TRANSLATION: I am also a victim of Al-Shabaab.
:02:33. > :02:34.Two of my brothers disappeared without a trace
:02:35. > :02:38.After that, our family was discriminated against.
:02:39. > :02:41.But some women who knew what I was going through started
:02:42. > :02:49.Many families are shunned when relatives join Al-Shabaab.
:02:50. > :02:52.But Salama uncovered stories about women who had been kidnapped
:02:53. > :02:55.All of these women have covered themselves to
:02:56. > :02:58.protect their identity, and we have changed their names.
:02:59. > :03:01.They are a range of ages and faiths, but all have suffered
:03:02. > :03:14.TRANSLATION: Some came back with babies, and some having
:03:15. > :03:20.Some even came back mad, because of the trauma
:03:21. > :03:26.Because nothing was being done to help these women,
:03:27. > :03:29.Salama took it upon herself to train as a counsellor.
:03:30. > :03:32.She set up a support group that meets in secret
:03:33. > :03:39.The women talk of being tricked, they were promised jobs in other
:03:40. > :03:45.cities, but instead they ended up as slaves of Al-Shabaab.
:03:46. > :03:48.Those men used to come and have sex with me.
:03:49. > :03:53.For those three years, every man was coming to sleep with me.
:03:54. > :03:55.You could have the same man maybe only twice.
:03:56. > :04:12.The rest of the time, you were sleeping with a different man.
:04:13. > :04:15.TRANSLATION: I was cooking for a very big team,
:04:16. > :04:19.Those who came for food had their faces covered.
:04:20. > :04:22.But you knew they were men because of their voices.
:04:23. > :04:25.I only got to see the faces of the ones who came
:04:26. > :04:29.These men call themselves the Lions of Allah.
:04:30. > :04:35.The women say they are responsible for kidnapping and abusing them.
:04:36. > :04:37.Allied to Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab are dedicated to creating
:04:38. > :04:45.a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia.
:04:46. > :04:49.The group has also carried out a string of attacks in neighbouring
:04:50. > :04:55.Amid these tensions, it's not easy to find out what's
:04:56. > :04:59.happening on the porous border between Kenya and Somalia.
:05:00. > :05:02.The densely wooded area is called the Boni Forest,
:05:03. > :05:10.We are told we can see the trafficking routes from the air.
:05:11. > :05:16.It's no doubt difficult to monitor this area.
:05:17. > :05:20.But from the air, we are seeing several cut lines, that we are told
:05:21. > :05:22.are routes the militants use for transport between
:05:23. > :05:33.Back on the ground, locals on the Kenyan side of the border
:05:34. > :05:35.tell me the Boni Forest is used by Al-Shabaab.
:05:36. > :05:37.They've found remains of recently-abandoned camps,
:05:38. > :05:39.and I'm told that women have been spotted being transported
:05:40. > :05:50.through the forest, en route to Somalia.
:05:51. > :05:54.Sureya Hersi runs a group called Sisters Without Borders.
:05:55. > :05:57.They fight for the rights of impoverished Muslim women
:05:58. > :06:05.Even she has only just learned about the trafficking problem.
:06:06. > :06:10.We discovered that, actually, we have women who were lured
:06:11. > :06:12.without their will, and taken to Somalia.
:06:13. > :06:15.Some of them have managed to come back to now tell their stories.
:06:16. > :06:25.It's so new, that when I finally get to see the county
:06:26. > :06:28.commissioner in Mombasa, he has no idea of the scale
:06:29. > :06:32.of the problem, and he's in charge of security.
:06:33. > :06:35.Yeah, there could be cases of women being smuggled out, yeah.
:06:36. > :06:42.There could be a few cases of women being smuggled out.
:06:43. > :06:47.You say "a few", could you put a number?
:06:48. > :06:50.No, I cannot give you the numbers, because, you see, these things
:06:51. > :07:00.Nobody comes out in the open to say, I am being trafficked,
:07:01. > :07:06.or I have been given a job in Somalia.
:07:07. > :07:15.So people hide, to go looking for greener pastures, as it were.
:07:16. > :07:18.One of the reasons it's been hard to collect statistics,
:07:19. > :07:21.is that those trafficked don't want to talk to the authorities.
:07:22. > :07:25.They say they are frightened of reprisals.
:07:26. > :07:28.Back at the office in Nairobi, I contact human rights
:07:29. > :07:35.organisations, to see who is working with trafficked women.
:07:36. > :07:38.But no one, apart from Salama Ali and her support group in Mombasa,
:07:39. > :07:43.She's been alerted to some new women who have just
:07:44. > :07:57.Salama is now the only known resource for women who have managed
:07:58. > :07:59.to escape from Al-Shabaab, and she is becoming
:08:00. > :08:05.We've come to a secluded place along Kenya's coast,
:08:06. > :08:08.and we feel that the women would be more at ease here.
:08:09. > :08:11.They feel safer, and open up about what they have been
:08:12. > :08:14.going through, without having to look over their shoulder to see
:08:15. > :08:16.who's following them, or who's listening to them.
:08:17. > :08:19.The last time we visited Salama she said that after we left,
:08:20. > :08:22.she spotted some suspicious-looking people who were following her,
:08:23. > :08:35.and so we don't want them to feel unsafe for speaking to us.
:08:36. > :08:37.Salama wears her trademark black niqab.
:08:38. > :08:40.The two new arrivals she wants me to meet, Faith and Ayesha,
:08:41. > :08:45.Over three days, I slowly gain their trust, and they tell me
:08:46. > :08:48.Both young women had been tricked into travelling to the north
:08:49. > :08:51.of the country with the promise of work, before being
:08:52. > :08:55.smuggled into a life of slavery with Al-Shabaab.
:08:56. > :08:59.Faith was just 16 when she was approached by an elderly couple
:09:00. > :09:05.We were told that there was work in Malindi,
:09:06. > :09:09.so we were taken that day in a Nissan.
:09:10. > :09:11.We were given some water, but it's like the water
:09:12. > :09:20.She says what happens next changes her life forever.
:09:21. > :09:26.When we gained consciousness, there were two men inside the room.
:09:27. > :09:29.They folded our eyes with those black scarves,
:09:30. > :09:40.Oh, maybe this is the work we have been told we are coming to do.
:09:41. > :09:47.After being drugged again, Faith finally wakes up to find
:09:48. > :09:53.Terrified, she spends the next three years of her life
:09:54. > :09:55.cooking for brutal men, who she believes were
:09:56. > :10:34.As we prepare dinner, the women begin to relax
:10:35. > :10:35.and reveal more detail of their abductions.
:10:36. > :10:48.Their stories are strikingly similar.
:10:49. > :10:51.But whilst Faith spent three years in captivity,
:10:52. > :10:54.the ordeal lasted twice as long for Ayesha.
:10:55. > :10:57.She too was promised a job by an elderly couple,
:10:58. > :11:00.this time in the town of Garissa, near the Somali border.
:11:01. > :11:08.But her dream job turned into a nightmare.
:11:09. > :11:12.We were asleep at that time, they came in and woke us with guns.
:11:13. > :11:21.They closed our nose and mouth, then they kidnapped us.
:11:22. > :11:24.The people who had promised her a job had actually
:11:25. > :11:29.Ayesha's new job was to be a sex slave for one of their fighters.
:11:30. > :11:48.This man that you were living with, was he always there?
:11:49. > :12:00.Faith and Ayesha have only recently escaped from captivity,
:12:01. > :12:03.but they've been left with lifelong reminders of their time
:12:04. > :12:30.Faith delivered her child entirely alone, in the middle
:12:31. > :12:32.of the night, in a forest, held prisoner by Al-Shabaab.
:12:33. > :12:36.With only her scarf to cover the baby, she says she was lucky
:12:37. > :12:38.to have a little knowledge from her grandmother,
:12:39. > :13:17.Ayesha also gave birth to a child in captivity.
:13:18. > :13:21.When you look at your son, does that remind you of a very
:13:22. > :13:43.But not all women who end up in the camps have been kidnapped.
:13:44. > :13:49.I meet Sara, who has also just returned from Somalia.
:13:50. > :13:52.Unlike Faith and Ayesha, she had voluntarily gone with her husband,
:13:53. > :13:55.an Al-Shabaab fighter, but she has since left the group.
:13:56. > :13:57.Though she says she wasn't involved herself, she explains how Al-Shabaab
:13:58. > :14:30.As the wife of a fighter, Sara's job was to clean the weapons.
:14:31. > :14:35.She claims the group target women in order to breed the next
:14:36. > :15:12.Sureya Hersi is trying to understand the magnitude of the trafficking
:15:13. > :15:15.problem by speaking to different people in the community.
:15:16. > :15:49.But such information is hard to come by.
:15:50. > :15:52.The biggest challenge that we have is with these women
:15:53. > :15:56.The main reason why women don't come out to speak,
:15:57. > :15:59.is because they also don't want to be shunned by their own
:16:00. > :16:04.People fear the government, they fear that if I look like I'm
:16:05. > :16:06.associated with you, and they know that you went
:16:07. > :16:10.to Somalia and came back, then they might say I'm also part
:16:11. > :16:13.Because, unfortunately, anybody who went to Somalia,
:16:14. > :16:16.irrespective of how they went there, whether willingly or trafficked,
:16:17. > :16:18.they are being looked as guilty, or probably are terrorists,
:16:19. > :16:22.Nobody trusts them, they don't know why they are back.
:16:23. > :16:25.And that makes Salama Ali's work very difficult.
:16:26. > :16:29.TRANSLATION: The government doesn't know about the services I offer.
:16:30. > :16:35.If the government discovers you've had contact with Al-Shabaab,
:16:36. > :16:39.So, we fear talking about this publicly.
:16:40. > :16:42.Despite the risks, Salama's secret mission is growing.
:16:43. > :16:45.She not only helps women who have managed to escape,
:16:46. > :16:47.but also an increasing number of families.
:16:48. > :16:50.We are looking for a place where we can interview
:16:51. > :16:54.We tried to go to their homes, but then they are afraid,
:16:55. > :16:57.they say they don't want the community to know
:16:58. > :17:02.Her sister disappeared over two years ago, tricked by a bogus agent
:17:03. > :17:05.who had promised her well-paid work in the Middle East.
:17:06. > :17:08.TRANSLATION: My sister left here for Saudi Arabia in January 2015.
:17:09. > :17:14.However, a month after she left, she was able to sneak
:17:15. > :17:22.She told me she was afraid she would never see us again.
:17:23. > :17:26.I asked her what was wrong, and she said she was not
:17:27. > :17:29.in Saudi Arabia but in Somalia, in an Al-Shabaab camp.
:17:30. > :17:38.We tried to call back straightaway, but we could not reach her.
:17:39. > :17:40.She called again and said she needed our help.
:17:41. > :17:43.She said she did not know how to get out.
:17:44. > :17:45.She pleaded for help, and then she disconnected.
:17:46. > :17:48.Since that time, we have never heard from her again.
:17:49. > :18:04.We went looking for the agent that had tricked Elizabeth's sister,
:18:05. > :18:15.This agent rented office space right in the middle of town.
:18:16. > :18:18.Here it's busy, clearly he wanted to look authentic.
:18:19. > :18:21.And for the duration of time he was open for business,
:18:22. > :18:31.we are not sure how many girls he was able to target.
:18:32. > :18:33.But we are told that as soon as Elizabeth's sister
:18:34. > :18:38.The lure of a well-paid job makes Kenyan women easy
:18:39. > :18:40.prey for traffickers, now an ever-present danger
:18:41. > :18:44.Sara, the former wife of an Al-Shabaab fighter,
:18:45. > :19:20.told me how the militants specifically target Kenyans.
:19:21. > :19:22.Kenya has taken the battle to Al-Shabaab.
:19:23. > :19:25.In 2011, the Kenyan government sent their forces into southern Somalia,
:19:26. > :19:38.ousting the militants from all major towns and cities.
:19:39. > :19:41.Al-Shabaab's revenge was to hit back repeatedly on Kenyan soil.
:19:42. > :19:44.The deadly attack on the popular Westgate shopping mall in the heart
:19:45. > :19:48.67 people were killed in the four-day siege.
:19:49. > :19:50.And even more recently, the group inflicted the biggest-ever
:19:51. > :20:05.The UN says at least 150 Kenyan soldiers were killed at a base
:20:06. > :20:09.Al-Shabaab is clearly Kenya's biggest security threat,
:20:10. > :20:12.and Sureya Hersi is in no doubt of the scale of the problem,
:20:13. > :20:14.whether from radicalisation, or the abduction and trafficking
:20:15. > :20:22.I don't think anybody has any statistics.
:20:23. > :20:25.Probably the government could have their own ways of finding out.
:20:26. > :20:28.And I can assure you, almost every family is affected.
:20:29. > :20:36.You either know somebody, or your neighbour has gone.
:20:37. > :20:39.In the course of this investigation, I tried repeatedly to find
:20:40. > :20:42.out from the government what was being done to stop this
:20:43. > :20:48.trade in Kenyan women, but all attempts proved futile.
:20:49. > :20:51.It has been very difficult and frustrating to get comment
:20:52. > :20:53.from the relevant government officials on this issue.
:20:54. > :20:56.This is the second time I've come to this office this week,
:20:57. > :20:59.and I've just been thrown out by the regional coordinator
:21:00. > :21:04.of security, the man in charge of security in this region.
:21:05. > :21:17.For Faith and her daughter, it's a long road back to a normal life.
:21:18. > :21:36.It was a really hard time for her, because she was used to the forest,
:21:37. > :21:39.It's not just sleeping indoors that is new for her daughter.
:21:40. > :22:03.She's also wearing clothes for the very first time.
:22:04. > :22:15.Salama and her group share a special bond through similar tragedy.
:22:16. > :22:17.Sometimes I call all the members of the group together,
:22:18. > :22:24.We have a small party, and at the end, we introduce the new member.
:22:25. > :22:26.Then we journey together in the healing process.
:22:27. > :22:28.All those girls did not go there willingly,
:22:29. > :22:32.they were looking for money, and hoping to get a good life.
:22:33. > :22:40.But actually what they got was sexual abuse.
:22:41. > :22:42.Without any support for victims, or increased awareness
:22:43. > :22:44.of the risks they face, vulnerable women on Kenya's
:22:45. > :22:53.Until government and communities recognise the problem
:22:54. > :22:57.of trafficking, it seems that Al-Shabaab will continue