DAR ES SALAAM, May 13 -- ACROSS many urban communities, a dangerous and neglected practice continues spreading quietly while authorities, community leaders, and families look away.

Here, young girls, and sometimes boys, are ferried from rural villages into towns and cities to work as domestic workers without proper recruitment procedures, legal protections, identity verification, or background checks. Many arrive in unfamiliar homes carrying emotional trauma, poverty, and fear, while the families receiving them know almost nothing about who they truly are.

Some employers only know these workers through unreliable brokers, vague village descriptions, or suspicious telephone contacts. Such carelessness creates insecurity for both vulnerab...