Crime in Kibera begins at very tender ages. [PHOTO/Standard]

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Although everybody knows that in Kibera crime begins at a very tender age, nobody is willing to open up the reasons behind this early beginning.

The following are the reasons why crime in Nairobi starts among youths, even children, at young ages.

1. Criminal gang culture

In Kibera, the various criminal gangs will take a kid or two to inculcate them into their ways. Sometimes it is the kids who carry the gun because when police come, they are most unlikely to search the young children because of an assumed innocence.

2. Tough life

Most people who live in Kibera slums stay there because of their low financial ability. The extreme levels of poverty forces children to start looking for money at a tender age. If they don't get the money for survival, they start stealing or using underhand means to get it.

3. Introduction by parents

Some of the parents who do illegal trade like sell of drugs, alcohol or prostitution usually expose their kids to these crimes at tender ages. When there is little money for the family's upkeep, a mother will let her young daughter join her in prostitution because they have been pushed to the wall. 

Other parents send their children to make deliveries of weed or other hard drugs because life offers them no alternatives. With time, the children become indoctrinated into crime and only pick from where the parents left. 

4. Peers

Little kids tend to be influenced by the friends they walk with. From their playgroups at school and at home, they tend to do what fits into the group.

In Kibera, if one of the group members has tendencies towards crime, chances are that the vice will spread to the other members. Parents, guardians and teachers are therefore urged to be on the lookout and guard their children from bad company.