I have just had my version of a “senior moment”. Reporting yesterday on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, I discovered that the lovely producer working alongside me was just six years old back in 1989.

Aside from feeling rather old, I also seem to have reached an age when I am telling stories which, however familiar they may be to me, need re-telling for a new generation. read more

Permalink||(1) Comment

It is the anniversary of the most important political event in most of our lifetimes, and yet so accustomed have we become to budget airline flights connecting us with central and eastern Europe in an hour or two, for a matter of a few quid, that the tumult of 1989 seems rather more than a lifetime ago.

The fall of the Berlin wall heralded Communism’s collapse in eastern Europe and, indeed, the collapse of the Soviet Union itself two years later.

read more

Permalink||(5) Comments

Hats off, everyone, to Ugo Borga, Matteo Fagotto and Giampaolo Musumeci. They are the brave team of Italian journalists behind tonight’s rare and exclusive glimpse of life inside the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Giampaolo is the cameraman. If his shots aren’t the steadiest, you’ll have to forgive him. You don’t hang about in Mogadishu, surely the most dangerous city for journalists anywhere in the world.

read more

Permalink||(6) Comments

We’ve received the following posting from Dr Catherine Maternowska, who works in the Mombasa hospital featured in last month’s film on child sex abuse in Kenya.

The hope among the hospital’s staff is that the film – and Catherine’s blog – will promote awareness, both at home and abroad, of the problems Kenyan children face.

We’ve alerted UNICEF and Britain’s Department for International Development to the film, as well as the Kenyan Department of Tourism.

Dr Maternowska says there are many stories of Kenyan mothers arranging for their own children to have sex with men, because an “asset is an asset”.

Across East Africa, the current drought and the global downturn are believed to be forcing more villagers into this awful position – of selling their loved ones, or selling themselves.

Jonathan
—–

It’s the tourist season now on the coast of Kenya. Beastly heat and humidity have given way to breezy tropical days on the gentle Indian Ocean. Wealthy Kenyans and Europeans flock to the resorts and the white sandy beaches. A brochure describes Mombasa as “a colourful palm-fringed coastal destination for holiday fun seekers”. With the influx of visitors, the pace in Mombasa picks up. Poor landless Kenyans hustle just about anything to generate badly needed income. But despite the increased opportunity, something clings to the edge of these resorts, a dark desperation. read more

Permalink||(1) Comment

The International Atomic Energy Agency does not want to be held responsible for starting a war.

The IAEA and its director, Mohamed El Baradei, jointly won the Nobel peace prize in 2005 for their “efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy, for peaceful purposes, is used in the safest possible way”.

read more

Permalink||(1) Comment

In response to viewers’ messages requesting further information on how to get involved with charities working with Kenya, following our report on child sex abuse in that country, we can post the following details:

KENYAN ORGANISATIONS FIGHTING AGAINST CHILD SEX ABUSE

Offers of help to the sexual violence clinic at Mombasa Coast General Hospital should be directed to -

Dr Heltan Maganga
Chief Administrator
Coast Province General Hospital
PO Box 90321
Mombasa, Kenya
East Africa

Donations to the clinic will be earmarked for specific child-friendly outreach activities which will be monitored and evaluated to assess the effectiveness in supporting Mombasa’s children.

Donors providing email addresses will receive reports on our progress. Cheques can be addressed to the Coast Province General Hospital-GBVRC.

Offers of help to the Coast Women’s Network Centre, which rescues and works with child prostitutes, should be directed to Ms Eve Ngoroge at Women’s Network Centre, Mnazi Mmoja Rd, P.O Box 88739 Mombasa, Kenya.

Email: womens.network2@gmail.com

This is the details for their account at CFC Stanbic, Mombasa:-

To the credit of :-
Women’s Network Centre,
A/c No. 0140030349601

via

HSBC BANK PLC
(FORMERLY MIDLAND BANK PLC)
27-32 POULTRY
LONDON EC2P 2BX
SORT CODE : 400515
SWIFT ADDRESS: MIDL GB22
A/C CfC STANBIC BANK LTD
A/C NO 35834646
SWIFT ADDRESS: SBICKENX

Offers of help to the youth football team in Malindi, Kenya, which encourages teenagers to stay away from the sex trade, should be directed to Ms Mary Rukungi, Secretary, Frifonet football Club, PO Box 5758, Malindi, Kenya. Email is – marianattabetty@hotmail.com. ormarianattabetty@gmail.com

Watch the report

Permalink||(3) Comments

Many thanks to all of you for your responses to our film.

I can assure you, it was just as harrowing a film to make as it was to watch.

Several of you have asked what you can do about the awful problems we highlighted in Kenya.

We will post details of appropriate organisations on our website as soon as we can.

Many thanks, Jonathan

LATEST: You can now find information on how to get involved with appropriate organisations here.

Permalink||(2) Comments

Kenya’s beaches are the stuff holiday brochures are made of – mile after mile of glistening white sand, kissed by equatorial sun. Tourism is a major money spinner for one of the world’s poorest countries, but Kenya’s tropical paradise hides a dark secret.

We have been on a harrowing journey – from nightclubs where European men pick up 12-year-old Kenyan girls; to an orphanage where children as young as six have found sanctuary after sexual abuse by foreign tourists.

A journey into a world of cruelty and desperation, a world we could scarcely have imagined. And both talking and filming with children brutalised and traumatised by their experiences has not been easy.

Our journey began in the nightclubs on the outskirts of Mombasa. Visit the Mtwapa suburb after midnight, and white male European tourists are busy ogling and fondling teenage girls.

The teenagers wear high heels, or pay a bribe at the club door to get in. The ultimate prize is a “muzungu ” or white man, who will pay for sex five times what a Kenyan labourer can earn in a day.

But the price these girls are paying is nothing less than a stolen childhood. read more

Permalink||(42) Comments

It could have been the deadliest terror attack on Australian soil, but it was thwarted after some 400 police conducted raids across Melbourne this morning and arrested men of Somali and Lebanese descent, men allegedly intent on attacking an army base outside Sydney which is the nerve centre for Australian counterterrorism forces. read more

Permalink||(5) Comments