"Tales from hell: For the guards at Kakuzi, it’s ‘sex-for-firewood’"

For several months leading up to September, Sarah had noticed a disturbing pattern with her 14-year-old daughter’s visits to a section of the Kakuzi plantation in Gateya, Murang’a County. Whenever the girl returned from the forested area locals have nicknamed Gachangi, she would have leaves and twigs all over her clothes and hair...It wouldn’t be long before the dark secret was out. On September 21, Fredrick Omondi Otieno, a guard, was arrested following a complaint against him over an illicit relationship with the teenager...

For a long time, women and girls from Gateya have become accustomed to this routine, but it’s one they would rather avoid if they had a choice. Behind Kakuzi’s kei apple fence, inside the blue gum trees and avocado farms, is a thriving sex-for-firewood trade that exploits teenage girls...

Kakuzi corporate affairs manager, Wilson Odiyo, told the Nation in October that the company acknowledges the multiple complaints of rights abuses against its guards. “First, Kakuzi apologises to all the stakeholders about the recent happenings. Our business operations are strongly interlinked to the community we operate and live in and our business cannot exist without them. We are deeply disheartened about the horrible experiences as reported by a section of our community,” Dr Odiyo said.