Kenya battling with Chinese prostitutes, arrests 15 at brothel

The Kenyan government has launched a war against Chinese nationals engaging in businesses reserved for locals. The recent crackdown was at a brothel in the capital Nairobi where 15 Chinese nationals were arrested.

The arrest was made by immigration officials at the popular South C estate neighbourhood and the Chinese suspects were transported to the Jomo Kenyatta Airport for processing and subsequent deportation, reports Daily Nation.

The Chinese embassy in Kenya has recently expressed displeasure at the arrest of their nationals who have legal documents to stay in the country. This followed the raid of the offices of the China Global Television Network in Nairobi and the brief detention of journalists to check their immigration status.

A Chinese employer was recently deported after he was caught on a video making disparaging remarks about Kenyans, including the president, Uhuru Kenyatta. It happened just hours after the end of the China-Africa cooperation summit where the Chinese government demonstrated its commitment to supporting Africa.

The man, named Liu Jiaqi, was recorded in the brief video saying that “all Kenyans [are] like a monkey, even [President] Uhuru Kenyatta”. The video is reported to have been recorded by an employee of Liu who was about to lose his job.

The employee was heard complaining about unfair treatment by his Chinese employer, but he [employer] interrupted saying he was getting that treatment because he was Kenyan.

“I don’t like here, like a monkey people. I don’t like [to] talk with them. Smells bad and poor… and black. Who like them? Why not the bright people like the Americans?” he added.

“So why are you coming to do business here?” the employee asked. “For money…money’s important,” he replied.

Another worrying trend following the influx of Chinese workers in Kenya is the growing number of abandoned babies of Chinese men who father children with local women.

The story of a 20-year-old student called Patricia who was reported to be looking for the father of her 2-month-old baby some months ago brought this issue to light.

She only knew the father of her child to be called Shu and was a member of the Chinese workers building a highway linking the capital Nairobi to the industrial town of Thika.

She said she was impregnated last year by the Chinese worker after he gave her a lift while returning from secondary school. She has since not seen him and has dropped out of school as a result.

China is now Africa’s biggest trading partner and has assisted the continent with $60 billion in 2015, and recently, another $60 billion loan for Africa and a clean up of the debt maturing by this year of its LDCs, highly indebted, landlocked and Small Islands States.

These form part of the eight new initiatives announced at the Forum for Africa-China Cooperation, FOCAC, in Beijing on September 3-4 where China launched an initiative to promote non-resources-based China imports from Africa and a $5 billion special fund to accelerate such efforts.