Social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok, dating sites, encrypted messaging services, and mobile money applications like M-Pesa are increasingly used to lure women and girls into harmful situations
Across Kenya, online sexual exploitation and abuse (OSEA) is escalating rapidly, with predators exploiting digital technologies to recruit, groom, abuse, and traumatise women and girls. Two new reports uncover how the digital realm is being weaponised to perpetrate harm online and offline through technology-facilitated sex trafficking, online sexual coercion and extortion, and image-based sexual abuse, including deepfakes and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
Commissioned by Equality Now and produced in partnership with KICTANet, with survivor testimonies gathered by HAART Kenya, Life Bloom Services International, and Trace Kenya, the report reveals OSEA’s personal, legal, and social dimensions. It highlights the continuum of sexual exploitation across digital and physical spaces and recommends actionable, survivor-centred legal and policy reforms.
An accompanying policy brief by Equality Now, ‘Not Just Online: Addressing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Across Digital and Physical Realities’, examines how online and offline sexual exploitation and abuse intersect and reinforce each other. Drawing on evidence from legal and advocacy work in Kenya with survivors, civil society, justice sector actors, and the media, the brief identifies critical gaps in laws, policies, and institutional responses that leave survivors without adequate protection or legal redress. Recommendations outline ways to strengthen prevention, protection, and accountability across physical and digital spaces.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok, dating sites, encrypted messaging services, and mobile money applications like M-Pesa are increasingly used to lure women and girls into harmful situations. The lack of binding obligations on tech companies to monitor and report harmful content compounds the problem, with social media platforms failing to adequately enforce their OSEA policies.
Perpetrators can connect with, manipulate, blackmail, harass, and shame victims with unprecedented reach, speed, and anonymity, often operating with impunity inside and beyond Kenya’s borders. Survivors are subjected to a range of violations, including being coerced into creating sexual content, blackmailed with intimate images, livestreamed during abuse, and trafficked.
Financial vulnerabilities put women at increased risk
Eighteen of the twenty documented survivor stories demonstrate how predators frequently offer money and false promises of well-paid employment. Over half the survivors were targeted through work, with four recruited for jobs abroad and subjected to sexual violence once overseas.
Perpetrators exploit encryption and other digital tools to hide identities and evidence, while survivors are mainly unaware of how to preserve digital proof.
Many cases collapse or are withdrawn. Free legal aid is essential as survivors with access to legal assistance are more likely to report crimes, persist through court processes, and secure favourable outcomes.
Kenya’s legal system is ill-equipped to address OSEA
Kenya has taken progressive steps to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse across physical and digital spaces through various laws and policies, including the Sexual Offences Act (2006), Counter-Trafficking in Persons Act (2010), the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act (2018) read together with the recently enacted Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act (2024).
To improve regional cybersecurity and data protection consistency, Kenya should ratify the Malabo Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection. While concerns over weak implementation and limited human rights safeguards are valid, the Convention provides essential tools for digital evidence-sharing, corporate accountability, and cross-border justice.
Regional cooperation is vital. Kenya can drive a rights-based, survivor-centred approach to online safety and cross-border cooperation across Africa by leading the shaping and advancement of more robust regional frameworks.
On 15 October 2025, Kenya enacted the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2024. It amends the 2018 Act, supplementing the original law with additional provisions, reflecting increasing awareness of digital threats and changes in online activities.
Some provisions have been added that could protect against online sexual exploitation and abuse. One positive development is that Section 30 on phishing now includes ‘calling’ as a technique to gain unauthorised access or trick users into revealing personal data.
Section 36A empowers the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4) to act against platforms hosting CSAM, terrorism, extremism, and cultic content. Section 27 on Cyber Harassment adds conduct “likely to cause [a person] to commit suicide.” However, enforcement must protect other human rights, such as freedom of expression, and prioritise survivors’ voices and rights. Platform accountability should not result in overreach or arbitrary censorship.
