When Interior CS Fred Matiang’i ordered illegal foreign workers regularise their work permits, it reminded me of the numerous cases of Kenyans who have come back from the Middle East with stories of mistreatment by their employers.
For decades the Gulf states have provided employment opportunities not only for Kenyans but also many people from Africa and Asia. Lately Lebanon and Jordan have joined the list of countries where Kenyans go to seek employment.
Returnees from the Middle East often tell of withheld or low wages, dangerous working conditions, squalid accommodation and rights abuses. Some workers have even been killed. Desperate Kenyans have been deceived by bogus recruiting agencies with the promise of lucrative jobs only to get to their destination and find they are to work as maids.
The agencies charge the jobseekers a fee to facilitate the acquisition of passports and work permits, after which they get one-way air tickets. On arrival, the jobseekers are received by another agent who deploys them to various job openings, depending on demand. They also surrender their passports to the agent and that’s the last time they see the agent.
Stories of victims being starved, overworked with low or no pay and women being sexually exploited are rampant. It is tantamount to modern-day ‘slavery’. Some frustrated workers have resorted to suicide while others kill members of their employer’s families.
In 2014 then Labour CS Kazungu Kambi suspended the recruitment of domestic workers to the Middle East after a string human rights abuses. He revoked the licences of 930 recruiting agencies and ordered they be vetted before they could be issued with new licences. He even appointed an 11-member task force to advise the government on the vetting and licensing of the agencies.
The ban was lifted, however, in March 2016 for people with professional qualifications, even as the prohibition on export of menial workers to the Gulf was retained, pending the drafting of a legal framework.
In 2010, Fatma Athman returned home with broken limbs and a chilling story of how her Saudi employer had thrown her out of a third floor window, breaking her legs and hands. Luckily she had landed in a swimming pool and not on the pavement. Susan Wanjiku said she lived on dog food as her employers neither fed her nor allowed her out of the house.
Reports indicate that about 180 migrant workers die each year in the these countries. A significant number are believed to have suffered injuries as a result of unsafe working practices, while others are behind bars.
The total number of foreign workers is more than half of the total population of the Gulf countries combined, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. Latest figures show that 17 million workers from Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa live and work in the Middle East and Gulf region. The UAE alone has about 2.4 million residents, 75 to 80 per cent of whom are foreigners.
There are about 250,000 Kenyans working in Saudi Arabia and nine million foreign workers. At the end of 2012, the number of Saudi residents was 29.2 million —19.8 million ( 68 per cent) were Saudis and 9.4 million ( 32 per cent) were foreigners.
Despite the horror stories coming from the Middle East, Kenyans keep trooping there. And with the 2022 World Cup tournament slated for Qatar, the migration to the Gulf seems unstoppable.
Broadcast journalist