Approximately 30,000 girls in Kenya aged below 19 years are currently engaged as commercial sex workers, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said yesterday.

ILO's sub regional adviser, Ms Simrin Singh, said the trend was leading to unwanted pregnancies, increased maternal mortality and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, including HIV/Aids, among young girls. She said an increasingly high number of girls are being engaged in prostitution because they are cheaper and much easier to manipulate.

Singh was speaking during an ILO/International programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) national workshop to combat commercial sexual exploitation of children, at a Nairobi hotel. "The young girls are also less troublesome and more docile hence do not insist on the use of protective devises including condoms," she said.

A consultant on children issues, Dr Philista Onyango, said about 300,000 children of school-going age are engaged in domestic child labour. The children are also exploited sexually by their employers.

"A majority of these children do not disclose what happens to them in the houses because they have been made into captives of terror," she said.