• Unscrupulous agents dupe Kenyans to travel to the Gulf for manual jobs that often turn into modern-day slavery
• Edwin Murira and Robert Ndegwa are cycling from Kenya to Burundi and back to create awareness on the perils and promote working locally
Image: EMOJONG OSERE
On October 28, 2018, social media users woke up to a video whose content many described as disturbing.
The video was of a woman desperately calling for her rescue from a cruel employer in the Middle East, where she was working as a house help.
In the video that played for one minute, the woman, who identified herself as Njeri Mwaura, looked tearful and desperately pleaded to be saved from a boss who had turned a tormentor in Saudi Arabia.
She said she had stayed for four days without food and had no strength to carry out domestic work assigned to her.
“My fellow Kenyans, please do not allow me to die here,” the wailing woman said.
She said she was from Kiambu and was working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, near the border with Jordan, and that her recruiting agent was somewhere along Accra Road in Nairobi Central Business District.
Njeri’s troubles then were just a tip of the many cases reported every year of Kenyans suffering in the Middle East, where they travel through recruiting agencies to be employed as domestic workers.
While many Kenyans find respectable and well-paying jobs, desperate ones end up being victims of domestic violence, torture and sexual harassment. Some end up working in brothels and massage parlours against their will.
Horror stories have not stopped young Kenyans, especially women, from flocking the oil-rich region. This despite government warnings to avoid being duped to travel to the Gulf through unscrupulous agents luring people to go and do manual jobs.
LOCAL INTERVENTION
Njeri’s troubles, among other similar cases, is what prompted two Kenyans to kick-start a campaign whose motive is to educate people that home is always best and travelling abroad in search for better opportunities may never be the best option.
Edwin Murira, 28, is the director at Mind Shift Kenya, a foundation that was started in 2016 with the objective of fighting 'Human trafficking, Illegal migration, Modern-day slavery and Xenophobia' (Himx).
“We have been reading stories of people struggling to return to Kenya and most African countries," Murira said in an interview.
"This is what triggered the whole idea of advocating human dignity because the moment somebody lies to you that we have a job out there and you realise you have been sold for a year or two, then it does not come out so well.”
Murira graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature at the Masaai Mara University in 2017. His colleague is foundation strategist Robert Ndegwa, 29, who did community development at diploma level.
“Having done studies, we also understood that human trafficking and illegal migration is such a big business all over the world, be it in the United States, in Asia and also in Africa. So we felt we need to speak out about it, particularly here in Kenya,” Murira said.
He said Mind Shift Kenya is unveiling diverse activities to help educate the public on the importance of acknowledging the fact that one can work and grow economically in his or her own country without necessarily flying out. One such activity is cycling.
On December 29, Murira and Ndegwa cycled for over 500km from Nairobi to Busia town and then to Malaba.
In every station they stopped at along the 521km journey, their message was one: Kenyans should unite and fight against human trafficking, illegal migration, modern-day slavery and xenophobia. They call the initiative the 'Anti-Himx Campaign'.
The two said the four crimes are inhuman acts that the world should condemn in the 21st Century.
“We rode from Nairobi to Busia to do the awareness about the campaign against human trafficking, illegal migration, modern-day slavery and xenophobia and letting people understand that unless we speak boldly against Himx, these will be cancers that will be eating our society,” Murira said.
“We hear about girls in some countries undergoing very humiliating experiences like rape, being overworked for more than 18 hours, which should not be the case, and of course, getting meagre or no pay at all. They more or less become slaves.”
Other activities Mind Shift carries out routinely to campaign against Himx are sports programmes for the youth, many of whom are vulnerable to illegal migration.
The foundation also runs advocacy and environmental care programmes. These bring the youth under one umbrella, where they are taught the negative effects on what transpires in the Middle East.
An average domestic worker in Kenya earns between Sh5,000 and Sh10,000 a month, depending on the employer. News that such workers will earn anything between Sh20,000 and Sh30,000 a month in the Gulf region arouses the desire to travel abroad. But such workers are regularly greeted by the shock of their life.
On arrival, often, their passports are confiscated by employers, making it difficult to travel back home in case they would want to. Some are denied pay as their bosses argue that the money they (bosses) spent in flying them to the Middle East would translate to their salary.
There are presently over 130 recruiting agencies in Kenya allowed to send workers abroad, but Murira said the agencies don’t bother to make follow-ups on what happens to their clients once they have left Kenya.
“They simply don’t care as long as you have boarded the plane,” he said.
Image: EMOJONG OSERE
ENGAGING EAST AFRICA
In May this year, Murira and Ndegwa will cycle and cover a distance of 3,040km across East Africa from Nairobi to Kampala then to Bujumbura in Burundi.
After taking a break in Burundi, the two will embark on the final stretch of the trip connecting to Kigali in Rwanda, Arusha in Tanzania before returning to Nairobi.
Murira said the anti-Himx campaign will be rolled out to the entire East African Community regions since Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi have a sizable number of citizens working as domestic workers in the Arab world.
He said the five countries need to speak with one voice against human trafficking, illegal migration, modern-day slavery and xenophobia.
East African nationals were among people recently targeted by South Africans at the height of xenophobic attacks in the South African country.
The Kenya High Commission in South Africa confirmed that Kenyans doing business in the country that fought against and defeated Apartheid were adversely affected by the xenophobic attacks directed at foreigners.
A statement released by Kenya’s Ambassador to South Africa Jean Kamau on September 4, 2019, said the commission had noted with great concern that several Kenyan citizens had been affected by the violence as well as reported incidents of looting in various sections of Gauteng province.
South African police fired teargas, stun grenades and rubber bullets in an attempt to quell the unrest that surged as South Africans accused foreigners of “taking away their jobs and other economic opportunities”. Johannesburg experienced the worst violence.
“We don’t want to see these things happening again. We have a lot of positive responses and we have been able to counter people who have gone through the same and shared their ordeals quite boldly,” Murira said.
“We are speaking to the young people and letting them understand that no one should tell them to go and look for greener pastures out there without following the right procedure.”
He said Kenyans are free to travel out of the country to work but added that the process should involve the government so it becomes easy for the State to intervene in case anything happens.
DIGITISE PROCESS
Murira said the governments in East Africa should introduce a tracking system where information about East Africans departing their countries is captured digitally.
“We are suggesting that if anyone is to leave Kenya through an agency, for example, then the government should be strict to such recruiting firms to a point that these companies become responsible if anything happens to any of our people out there,” he said.
His foundation is closely working with the US-based International Human Rights Commission.
There are agencies promising people they will be flown to particular countries in Europe only for them to be flown to different nations, he said. This amounts to a breach of contract and the government should hold such agencies to account, he added.
Ndegwa on his part said Mind Shift’s activities also target foreigners who are flown into Kenya with the promise of being given lucrative jobs only to end up working as prostitutes, particularly in high-end hotels, brothels and clubs in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.
“We have seen girls from foreign countries being told there are greater opportunities in Kenya, only to come here and become sex workers. And because they are foreigners, whatever they are told to do, they will do because they have no option,” he said.
Murira and Ndegwa cycled to Busia town and eventually to Malaba because the towns host two of Kenya’s entry and exit points to East and Central Africa.
Most victims of human trafficking, illegal migration and modern-day slavery leaving Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi pass through either Malaba or Busia border points before travelling to Nairobi, from where they are flown out of the country.
Recruiting agencies transporting East Africans searching for better employment opportunities in Europe and the Middle East prefer Nairobi, as the city hosts the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, which has more flight connectivity routes to other parts of the world. Most East African migrants who remain in Kenya mostly use the Busia and Malaba border posts.
There is no clear number of Kenyans living in the Middles East. Whereas the government says they are approximately 60,000, NGOs put the figure at over 120,000.
Edited by T Jalio
Image: EMOJONG OSERE