A Kenyan hospital employee, Fred Leparan, who was exposed by the BBC for selling a baby on the black market, has been found guilty of child trafficking. Leparan, employed at Nairobi's Mama Lucy Kibaki hospital, was captured on film accepting $2,050 (£1,600) to facilitate the sale of a baby boy under the hospital's care. This arrest occurred in 2020 following an investigation by BBC Africa Eye.

Leparan faced charges alongside another hospital employee, Selina Awour, relating to child theft. While Awuor was convicted on three counts of child neglect, she was acquitted of child trafficking. Both individuals are scheduled for sentencing on September 26.

The BBC's Africa Eye investigative team initiated contact with Leparan, posing as potential buyers after receiving information from a source suggesting his involvement in illegal child trafficking at the government-run hospital. A meeting was arranged at the hospital, during which Leparan showed minimal interest in the undercover reporter's situation before agreeing to sell the baby boy.

On the day when the baby boy was meant to be transferred from the hospital to a government-run children's home, along with two other children, Leparan was caught on camera falsifying the transfer paperwork to make it appear that the home should expect only two children instead of three. The BBC ensured that all three children were safely delivered to the children's home but recorded Leparan altering the paperwork and informing them that the child was now theirs to take away.

Despite overwhelming evidence, the legal proceedings lasted for more than two years. Leparan secured strong legal representation in Kenya, but his testimony during the trial was inconsistent and evasive. He initially denied his involvement, attempting to claim that the voice in the undercover footage belonged to someone else, even though his mouth moved in sync with the words. Later, he admitted that some of the words were indeed his own.

Leparan also claimed not to recognize various parts of the hospital where he had worked for three years, despite the court being presented with footage showing him secretly arranging the theft and transfer of the baby boy.

While the BBC's investigation exposed the illegal sale of one child from Mama Lucy, a former hospital employee who spoke to Africa Eye anonymously revealed knowledge of 12 missing children under the hospital's care in just two months.

"So many people are corrupt. Once they are given something small they keep quiet and never talk," he said, referring to bribes given to staff.

In Kenya, the demand for stolen children remains distressingly high, driven by a combination of cultural stigma surrounding infertility and adoption, along with a cumbersome legal adoption process.

The hospital scam orchestrated by Leparan is just one facet of this multifaceted issue. Africa Eye's investigations have also captured traffickers organizing the illicit buying and selling of infants in clandestine street clinics. Moreover, the audacious abduction and sale of babies from vulnerable, homeless mothers living on Nairobi's streets have been documented.

Mary Auma, who operated a clinic where vulnerable mothers gave birth and sold their babies for subsequent resale at a profit, disappeared after being exposed by our undercover team. Upon returning to Nairobi recently, we found no trace of Auma, and her clinic had been shut down.

However, the heartbreaking reality persists: babies continue to be abducted in Nairobi. Near the site of the closed clinic, a woman approached us, clutching a flyer featuring the image of her five-year-old granddaughter, Chelsea Akinye. According to Chelsea's grandmother, Rosemary, the young girl was abducted from the street a year and six days prior. Rosemary has tirelessly searched for Chelsea every day since her disappearance, distributing flyers throughout the neighborhood and beyond. She described Chelsea as a joyful child with immense potential in her studies.

"When she came from school, she would get anyone close to her to help her with homework before she would go out to play," Rosemary said.

"I have searched for Chelsea all the way to Busia. Since that day, I leave very early in the morning, sometimes at 4am, to search for her."

Like other parents or grandparents who have been subjected to the terrible ordeal of having a child being snatched, Rosemary sometimes longs for closure in any form.

"I imagine someone would have abandoned her somewhere, or she has been killed and left somewhere. And I go and bury her, and it leaves my heart," she said.

Reliable statistics regarding the extent of child trafficking in Kenya are scarce. According to Florence Bore, the Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection in the country, there were 6,841 reported cases of missing children between July 2022 and May 2023, with only 1,296 successfully reunited with their families.

Mueni Mutisya, representing the Directorate of Criminal Investigations Child Trafficking Unit, informed the BBC that the unit now deals with an average of approximately five new cases of child abduction each week. These cases disproportionately impact families with the lowest incomes, according to Ms. Mueni.

In 2020, the day after our initial investigation was published, Kenya's then Minister for Labour and Social Protection, Simon Chelugui, made a commitment to take stringent government actions to combat the trade in stolen children. He vowed that those responsible would face the full weight of the law.

While new laws aimed at strengthening child protections came into effect in the past year in Kenya, Ms. Mueni emphasizes that there is still much work to be done. She advocates for new legislation that would mandate members of the public to report any suspicions of child abuse or abduction, further enhancing child protection measures.

"Let us have a common goal of protecting children," she said.

The most vulnerable children are still those being raised by the poorest families, according to Maryana Munyendo, the head of charity Missing Child Kenya, which operates a toll-free line for people to report abductions.

"Within Nairobi, we still get a lot of cases from the slum areas," Ms. Munyendo said. She said her phone line still received three missing child reports every day on average.