Mombasa: Sun, sea and for some - sex. For tourists at east Africa beaches, finding prostitutes has never been difficult.
But now, increasing numbers of western tourists are coming to buy sex with children. In Mombasa, Kenya, one girl told CNN she was forced to sleep with western tourists by her aunt when she was only 12 - only to earn extra money to help the family survive.
She did not want to do it, she explains, but she had no other means of helping because she was too young to work.
A recent report by Unicef found over 60 per cent of child abusers here come from abroad - the largest groups of foreign offenders are Germans and Italians.
Elizabeth Akinyi runs a local NGO called Solwodi - Solidarity with Women in Distress - that supports young victims of child sex tourism.
The United Nations estimates that in Mombasa and three other coastal areas in Kenya, 30 per cent of all 12-18 year olds are involved in casual sex work. Whether it's on the streets of Mombasa or Internet sites advertising Kenyan children, it's big business which can leave its victims beaten and abused.
A lot of the children are pimped out by older, more experienced women - one of these madams, who's been doing it for at least five years, has agreed to talk to us"
"There are agents, adults especially who get these girls for the white people, it's a deal for the white man who could ask for a child of even 10 or 12 years,” says an agent, known as “Madam.”
Under new laws introduced last year, anyone convicted of under-age sex will face life imprisonment.
But so far, Elizabeth Akiniyi says none of the young children seeking help from Solwodi has ever had their international abusers jailed.
In the meantime, foreign paedophiles continue to come to Mombasa to escape the authorities in the west, using their money to turn this paradise into hell for their child victims.
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