Burudnians at the Embassy in Nairobi on September 7, 2026.President William Ruto's directive targeting foreign nationals engaged in small-scale retail and hawking has triggered an unexpected development in Nairobi's central business district, where streets that have for years been associated with persistent begging were largely free of beggars on Tuesday.
The development has renewed questions over long-standing claims that some of the people begging on Kenyan streets are part of cross-border networks that traffic vulnerable children and people with disabilities into the country.
One of the areas where the change was particularly noticeable is the stretch along Gaborone Road, linking Racecourse Road near St Peter Claver's area to Tom Mboya Street near CGHU Primary School.
The stretch has for years been a familiar spot for street beggars, some of whom would station themselves along the road and at busy junctions to solicit money from pedestrians and motorists.
On Tuesday, however, none was visible along the stretch. Other alleys and backstreets in the CBD that had become familiar spots for beggars and street families also appeared quieter than usual.
The apparent disappearance comes days after Ruto directed foreign nationals engaged in hawking and small-scale retail to stop operating businesses that he said should be reserved for Kenyans.
The directive initially gave affected traders until September 7 to comply. It triggered anxiety among foreign traders, particularly Burundians, who scrambled for travel documents from their embassy in Nairobi amid fears of possible deportation.
The government on Tuesday, however, clarified that foreign nationals operating businesses in Kenya would be given 90 days to regularise their immigration status, work permits, business registrations and licences.
Government Spokesperson Charles Owino said the measures were intended to regulate small-scale retail and informal trade while protecting local livelihoods and vulnerable sectors of the economy.
The government has also stressed that the directive should not be interpreted as a licence to harass or discriminate against foreigners.
While the order has affected nationals from several East African countries, Burundians have been among those most visibly affected in Nairobi.
The situation has also put renewed focus on the persistent presence of foreign beggars in Kenyan towns and allegations that some are victims of organised trafficking.
In November 2024, the National Council for Persons with Disabilities raised concern over what it described as an influx of beggars, some suspected to have originated from neighbouring countries.
NCPWD Rift Valley Regional Director Isaac Rogito said investigative and security agencies had established that some beggars, particularly children, were victims of an East African criminal syndicate trafficking them to towns in the region.
He said traffickers allegedly brought victims into the country with promises that they would make money through begging, only for the proceeds to end up with the traffickers.
The claims are also supported by findings in successive US State Department Trafficking in Persons reports. The 2023 report on Kenya said traffickers brought children and people with physical disabilities from Tanzania and other neighbouring countries into Kenya for forced begging.
It also noted that foreign victims could be coerced into facilitating further trafficking schemes. The report gave a case involving an eight-year-old Tanzanian girl who was brought to Kenya after a man promised her grandmother that she would get work and send money home.
Instead, the girl was forced to beg on the streets of Nairobi alongside other children and was not paid.
She eventually escaped her trafficker before being re-exploited in domestic servitude. The 2024 US report similarly said traffickers continued to bring children and people with physical disabilities from Tanzania and other neighbouring countries to Kenya for forced begging.
The issue has previously surfaced in crackdowns by local authorities. In June 2020, a crackdown in Nairobi resulted in the arrest of 52 street beggars.
Thirty-eight were identified as Tanzanian nationals, six as Ugandans, while others were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Eritrea.
Authorities in Laikipia also repatriated dozens of underage beggars in November 2022 after they were found in urban centres including Nyahururu and Nanyuki.
The children were believed to have come from a neighbouring country.
The latest disappearance of beggars from parts of Nairobi's CBD does not, on its own, establish a direct link between the President's directive and the networks alleged to be behind street begging.
However, the timing has brought the two issues into sharp focus, particularly because both involve the movement of foreign nationals across Kenya's borders and the exploitation of vulnerable people.
The government's new 90-day regularisation window means foreign nationals operating small businesses legally or seeking to regularise their status now have time to comply before enforcement measures begin.
For authorities, the challenge will be to distinguish between legitimate foreign traders seeking to comply with the law and trafficking networks that exploit children and people with disabilities for begging.
It also places renewed attention on the need for enforcement agencies to investigate the networks behind forced begging while ensuring that genuine trafficking victims are protected rather than treated as offenders.
For Nairobi residents who have become accustomed to seeing beggars at nearly every major junction, however, the empty pavements of the CBD have already raised a question that has lingered for years: where do the people who regularly beg on the city's streets come from, and who ultimately benefits from the money they collect?
