The youth continue to be attracted to human trafficking rings by crooks who lure them with jobs abroad only to be turned into sex slaves. Others are handed over to people in the Middle East who use them as slaves in their households without pay.

Human traffickers mostly target desperate young girls who are contacted on social media by people who purport to offer them well paying jobs in the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries, only to trade them.

A few years ago, authorities stepped up efforts to combat human trafficking, but it seems to have worked for a short time.

Murekatete Nadine (Not real names) who lives in Kimisagara had been Facebook friends with a man who claimed to be Kenyan. They had been chatting for a while until one day he told her he had got her a job.

She responded by telling him she didn’t have any money to move around let alone coming to Kenya, to which he assured her not to worry as he will take care of everything.

A month and a half later, Ms Nadine found herself in Kuwait working under inhumane conditions. Her new bosses assured her that they had spend a lot of money on her and that she was now their property to be used as they wish.

“I used to work for long hours everyday without rest. They only fed me on the few left overs on their plates, at times I could eat only twice or once a week, I was also tortured physically and emotionally through debasing insults,” she said.

This went on until one day her employer decided he was tired of Ms Nadine and locked her out of the house at night. Together with another victim of the same ordeal, they walked throughout the night until they hitched a ride.

After moving a certain distance, the driver also attempted to rape them, but they managed to fight him off, he ended up driving them to another place that is far and dropped them there. She was lucky that Rwandan authorities in Dubai reached out and rescued her, reconnecting her with her family in Rwanda.

Another victim was lured by an elderly woman who offered her a job that seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She accepted the offer and traffickers sent her to Nairobi, Kenya, under strict orders to hide her passport.

Instead of the job at a supermarket she was promised, she found herself in a slave market, called the office, where prospective buyers browsed. She ended up working as a domestic worker where she experienced sexual and physical abuse and surviving in inhumane conditions.

Additionally, she changed homes three times with each worse than the one before. When she succeeded in reaching a Rwandan diplomat on a phone she kept discretely, she managed to escape.

Peter Karake who works with a unit charged with fighting human trafficking at Rwanda Investigations Bureau said in September they intercepted Rwandan girls who were being trafficked through Kenya.

He said what helped is the fact that these girls at one point realised that the jobs they were being taken to do was just a ruse, hence reaching out to authorities who intervened and got them back.

“Three people are being investigated regarding this case, human trafficking continues to happen, many girls are lured with jobs that are not there, they end up being tortured and overworked, so when we get a distress call we act fast to save them,” said Mr Karake.