Transnational_issues of Kenya
Disputes - international: | Kenya served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan's north-south separation in February 2005; Kenya provides shelter to almost a quarter of a million refugees, including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels; Kenya works hard to prevent the clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading across the border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists; the boundary that separates Kenya's and Sudan's sovereignty is unclear in the "Ilemi Triangle," which Kenya has administered since colonial times |
Refugees and internally displaced persons: | refugees (country of origin): 150,459 (Somalia), 76,646 (Sudan), 14,862 (Ethiopia) IDPs: 431,150 (KANU attacks on opposition tribal groups in 1990s) (2006) |
Trafficking in persons: | current situation: Kenya is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation; children are trafficked within the country for domestic servitude, street vending, agricultural labor, and sexual exploitation; men, women, and girls are trafficked to the Middle East, other African nations, Western Europe, and North America for domestic servitude, enslavement in massage parlors and brothels, and manual labor; Chinese women trafficked for sexual exploitation reportedly transit Nairobi and Bangladeshis may transit Kenya for forced labor in other countries tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Kenya is placed on the Tier 2 Watch List due to a lack of evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking |
Illicit drugs: | widespread harvesting of small plots of marijuana; transit country for South Asian heroin destined for Europe and North America; Indian methaqualone also transits on way to South Africa; significant potential for money-laundering activity given the country's status as a regional financial center; massive corruption, and relatively high levels of narcotics-associated activities |