The government should end this Middle East slave trade

There has been a sea of humanity at Nyayo House building from Monday to Friday. Majority of those thronging here are first-time passport applicants. Despite the relative ease of applying the document online, obtaining it remains a rigorous and painstaking experience not for the faint-hearted or short-tempered.

Majority of these first time applicants have one thing in common; their destination is Middle East. Countries of choice are Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and even Iraq.

Another common thing also is the fact that these Kenyans are going to perform domestic and menial jobs. This is despite the Cabinet Secretary for Labor, Phyllis Kandie insisting in May this year that the ban on domestic workers is still in force. Only professionals are allowed to work in Middle East.

These Middle East shenanigans paints the picture of a government that does not know what is happening in its backyard or is too indifferent and complacent to notice anything. Domestic workers are flocking these countries in droves and you cannot blame them.

With unemployment at an all-time high and a saturated labor market, any job is welcome for these hardworking young men and women. The employment agencies are exploiting this to the maximum.

Despite an order to de-registering these agencies and recommendation that they be vetted afresh in 2014 after numerous cases of abuses and deaths, these agencies continue to operate with impunity.

They charge a fee of Kshs.10000 on wards purportedly for linking one with a potential employer. They lure unsuspecting Kenyans with prospects of well-paying non-existent jobs.

With no signed contracts, no letter of appointment from these employers, the moment these Kenyans land abroad, they take any available job. With oil dollars in high circulation and relative laziness among some of these Arabs, one can be hired for doing anything even wiping his master’s nose!

Then they realize they are not employees but slaves who have been bought from Kenya and are at the mercy of their master or mistress.

The racial prejudice that used to exist during the era of slave trade has never exited the minds of these Sheikhs. They don’t give a damn about labor laws, freedom of worship or association.

The pay is usually at the discretion of the master. The figures that those who endured that misery give are a mockery. Salaries for domestic workers are in the region of kshs.20000 to Kshs.40000 less than what a jua kali artisan a hawker or a matatu tout earns here.

If this is not subjecting our people to servitude, I don’t know  what it is. There is a parallel between these Middle East jobs and the treacherous journeys undertaken across the Mediterranean Sea by West and North Africans.

 It’s time to crackdown on these rogue, blood-sucking employment agencies and save our people from this slave trade masquerading as Middle East jobs. Also the economy needs to be fixed quickly to prevent this exodus.

 Let us export only professional labor.