A person who works in a hospital in Kenya was caught by the BBC trying to sell a baby illegally. This person has now been found guilty of child trafficking.
Fred Leparan, who worked at Mama Lucy Kibaki hospital in Nairobi, was caught on video accepting $2,050 (£1,600) in exchange for selling a baby boy who was being cared for at the hospital.
He got taken by the police in 2020 after an investigation by BBC Africa Eye.
Leparan and another hospital worker named Selina Awour were accused of stealing a child.
Awuor was found guilty of not taking care of children, but she was cleared of the charge of illegally moving children around.
The couple will receive their punishment on 26 September.
An Africa Eye reporter pretended to be interested in buying something from Leparan. They did this because they had heard from someone that Leparan, who works as a senior social worker in a hospital, was involved in illegally selling children.
A meeting was set up at the hospital. Leparan asked the secret reporter some quick questions about her situation. She mentioned that she and her husband had trouble having a baby. Without much thought, Leparan agreed to sell the baby boy.
On the day when the baby boy was supposed to go from the hospital to a special home for children run by the government, someone named Leparan was caught on camera changing the important documents for the transfer. Leparan made it look like only two children were coming to the home instead of three.
The BBC team made sure that all three children were taken to their new home. They filmed Leparan fixing some paperwork and telling the family that they could now officially adopt the child.
Even though there was proof that said he was guilty, the court case continued for over two years. Leparan had a very good lawyer in Kenya, but when he was questioned in court, what he said didn’t match up and he avoided giving direct answers.
He had to admit that it was him in the secret video, but he tried to say that someone else’s voice was speaking, even though his mouth was moving along with the words. Afterwards, he confessed that some of the words were his.
Leparan said he couldn’t remember parts of the hospital where he had worked for three years. In court, they showed a video of Leparan planning to steal and move the baby boy without anyone knowing.
The BBC found out that Mama Lucy sold a child illegally. However, a former worker, who asked not to be identified, told Africa Eye that they knew of 12 children from the hospital who disappeared in only two months.
A lot of people are dishonest. “He said that when they receive something small, they stay silent and never speak,” he mentioned, talking about the bribes provided to the employees.
Many people in Kenya still want to buy stolen children because they believe in false stereotypes about being infertile or adopting legally being difficult.
The hospital scam run by Leparan is just one part of this complicated issue. Africa Eye also recorded people who buy and sell babies in illegal clinics on the streets, and the open stealing and selling of babies from homeless mothers in the city.
Mary Auma, who operated a clinic for struggling mothers to give birth and sell their babies to her, so that she could then sell them for money, went missing after our undercover team captured her on camera. When we returned to Nairobi, we couldn’t find Auma and her clinic was closed.
However, newborns are still being taken away from their parents without permission in Nairobi. Near the entrance of the closed clinic, a lady came up to us and showed us a paper with a picture of her five-year-old granddaughter, Chelsea Akinye.
Chelsea’s grandmother, Rosemary, told us that Chelsea had been taken from the street one year and six days ago. She said she had been looking for Chelsea every day, putting up flyers in the neighborhood and other areas.
She said that the little girl was happy and doing well in school.
Rosemary said that when she returned from school, she would ask someone nearby for help with her homework before going out to play.
“I have looked for Chelsea all the way to Busia. ” Since that day, I start my search for her very early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4am.
Like other parents or grandparents who have had the horrible experience of having a child taken away, Rosemary sometimes wishes for some kind of resolution or conclusion.
I think someone might have left her somewhere, or she could have been killed and left somewhere. “And then I go and bury her, and it makes me sad,” she explained.
There is not much information available on the exact number of children who are being trafficked in Kenya. According to Florence Bore, who is in charge of labor and social protection in the country, a total of 6,841 children went missing from July 2022 to May 2023. Only 1,296 people have been able to be reunited with their families.
Mueni Mutisya, who works for the Child Trafficking Unit of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said to the BBC that their unit usually receives about five new cases of child abduction every week. Mostly, the lowest income families are impacted, according to Ms.
The day after we first shared our findings in 2020, Kenya’s former minister in charge of labor and social protection, Simon Chelugui, promised that the government would take strong measures to stop the illegal trafficking of children. He assured that those responsible would be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Last year, Kenya implemented new laws to make sure children are better protected. However, according to Ms. Mueni, there is still more work to be done. She asked for new rules that would make it necessary for people to tell authorities if they think a child has been hurt or taken away without permission.
“She said we should all work together to keep children safe. ”
The children who are most at risk are still those who come from the poorest families. Maryana Munyendo, who leads the charity Missing Child Kenya, says this. The charity provides a free phone line for people to report cases of child abductions.
“Ms Munyendo said that in Nairobi, we continue to have many cases coming from the poor neighborhoods. ” She mentioned that her phone still gets three missing child reports every day on average.