The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media
platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and
international interest.
By Brian Okoth (@BrianOkoth2)
Citizen TV presenter Janet Mbugua has come out to share her experience on how she was prejudiced while working in South Africa.
She says working in South Africa left her feeling unsettled, and that she was occasionally engulfed in fear for being a non-South African.
Janet took to her official Facebook Page to share her story.
“Living in South Africa always left me feeling unsettled. There was always an underlying sense of fear and concern regarding my status as a 'Kwere Kwere' (their derogatory term for African immigrants) and I wasn't able to easily secure my work permit because of the same, “reads her post in part.
She further reveals that xenophobic comments and attacks are so real in the country that even before she got her work permit, she had to endure difficult questions:
“I even remember one of the women working at the immigration department at the SA high commission in Nairobi asking me, 'why you, why not a South African?' My answer to her was always, 'ask the South African company that head hunted me!’”
The talented TV presenter says she felt so uncomfortable working in South Africa that she couldn’t wait to get back to Kenya.
“I would later secure a work permit and contract for five years but I was by then too jaded to stay. I was relieved to finally leave and come back home (Kenya) in 2011.”
She says the work mood in the country was tense regardless of her employer and colleagues at work treating her very well.
“Although my colleagues and the organization I worked for treated me very well, living there, you could feel this sense of loathing towards fellow Africans building up, now it's boiled over in the worst possible way, including the murder of five foreigners, among them a 14-year-old boy,” she says in her post referring to latest sad xenophobic attacks that happened in South Africa.
The news anchor encouraged close introspection amongst Africans, and that leaders fuelling the attacks should be held liable.
“South Africa needs serious healing and to hold the careless leaders inciting this madness accountable, while the rest of us need to do a serious self-audit of how we treat each other. Something's got to change.”
