TANGA, March 10 -- WHEN a 13-year-old girl fled her home in Tanga City recently, she carried nothing but the clothes she was wearing and a small school bag. She was not running from poverty or punishment. She was running for her life.

According to child protection advocates, the girl had endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, abuse that allegedly began while she was still in primary school, as her mother remained silent.

She had been just one year old when her mother married the man she now lives with. With no one to protect her, she chose the streets over her own home.

“This child reached a point where she felt safer outside than inside her own house,” says George Bwire, Director of the Tanga Youth T...