The British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has said it cannot readily determine how many British service personnel have been arrested or prosecuted for paying for sexual services overseas, arguing that extracting the data would exceed the cost limits set under freedom of information law.
In a response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), the MOD said the information is not held centrally in a searchable format and would require officials to manually review individual case files across the Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines.
The refusal comes despite heightened scrutiny of the conduct of UK forces abroad, particularly in Kenya, where a series of investigations and media reports have raised concerns about sexual exploitation and abuse involving British troops stationed at the British Army Training Unit Kenya. A service inquiry published in 2025 found that some soldiers continued to pay for sex despite a formal ban, concluding that “transactional sex” was still occurring at a low to moderate level.
In July 2022, the armed forces introduced a blanket prohibition on transactional sex overseas, replacing a patchwork of service-level rules, as part of an effort to curb sexual exploitation and restore confidence in military discipline. The MoD has repeatedly described the policy as a zero-tolerance measure.
In August 2025, General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff said: “There is absolutely no place for sexual exploitation and abuse by people in the British Army. It is at complete odds with what it means to be a British soldier. It preys on the vulnerable and benefits those who seek to profit from abuse and exploitation.”
“Transactional sex is still happening in Kenya at a low to moderate level. It should not be happening at all.We are listening and learning, and I am implementing the report’s recommendations in full, with new measures to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse. These include increasing the Army’s ability to discharge people for engaging in transactional sex, a new and specific training programme placing an obligation on everyone in the Army to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, and increasing our oversight and assurance measures to ensure this is being taken as seriously as it warrants. The report also sets out a number of areas where we’ve already taken action, which will help tackle sexual exploitation and make Kenyan women safer.”
Despite Walker drawing this line in the sand, the MOD said that complying with AOAV’s request just to find out how many soldiers had been prosecuted under this ban in Kenya and beyond would exceed £600, the statutory threshold under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, and therefore refused to provide the figures.
The request sought a breakdown covering the years 2020 to 2024 of arrests and prosecutions, under both civilian and military justice systems, relating to service personnel who paid for sex while deployed overseas. The MoD confirmed that some information is held but said it is recorded on the Joint Personnel Administration system in a way that does not allow cases to be easily filtered by offence type or location. Key details, such as where an incident took place, are not mandatory fields, meaning each case would need to be checked individually.
Commenting on the response, Dr Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence, said: “The Ministry of Defence is enforcing a zero-tolerance policy but cannot say how often that policy has led to arrests or prosecutions. If it costs too much to find out whether the rules are being enforced, that raises serious questions about transparency, oversight and accountability in how the UK polices its forces overseas.”
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