Nairobi, March 21 -- Harriet Atyang would walk to school barefoot, and feel lightheaded. She would see blue, red, and sometimes green butterflies when there were none.

Why? There was something impure circulating in little Harriet's brain - the traditional brew commonly known as busaa.

Her mother single-handedly brought her up alongside seven siblings in Busia, western Kenya. She had nothing. All she had was a tiny earthen house from where she brewed the unlicensed liquor to send her children to school. The earnings were so thin that they could not be stretched any further to buy even one kilo of maize flour to cook for her children.

On the days when lady luck glanced at her, she could find rotten bread or food in the garbage she rummag...