Victims’ agony amid thriving illicit human trafficking business to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia   

It has now emerged that shadowy organised criminal groupings running the clandestine human trafficking business have local contacts and foreigners involved in illegal recruitment and trafficking of persons posing as businesspeople in the country, The Informer has established.

The bold and daring human trafficking racket is on the prowl with the government seemingly unable to crackdown with a ready slave market in the Middle East and notably Saudi Arabia.

Our investigations have established that employment agencies, some briefcase firms have retained their contact people in far flung remote and rural areas either on retainer or commission basis to act as the ‘feeder agents’ to registered agencies to aide the illicit trade.

The local contacts are said to be earning between Sh50,000 to Sh100,000 for every girl the recruit and is successfully trafficked.

Further, they are said to operate in cahoots with rogue embassy employees who facilitate illegal processing of visas using particulars and data, including photos using forged documents.

The cartel involves primary recruiters of girls, employment and travel agencies, officials from the National Employment Authority (NEA) and embassy staff.

Those trafficked, mostly young girls and women are forced into commercial sex, prostitution and hard labour in the Middle East countries under the guise of other greener pastures.

Most of the victims have been on record calling for help back home.

Today, a human rights lobby group agitating against skyrocketing cases of human trafficking indefinitely postponed a planned demonstration outside the Saudi Arabia Embassy in Nairobi the last minute to pave way for talks between them and the Ministry for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs.

The Center for Diaspora Affairs (CDA) was to hold a peaceful protest “on behalf of all the Kenyan victims in Saudi Arabia.” The notice read in part.

Speaking exclusively to The Informer on phone, Executive Director of CDA John Maina said they are engaged in a prolonged dialogue with the Principal Secretary, State Department for Diaspora Affairs, Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, Roseline Njogu.

The activists said the meeting was meant to address areas of concern ahead of their planned demonstration to the Saudi Arabia embassy in the country, over the same issues and problems Kenyans go through abroad.

“We are giving the Foreign Affairs Ministry a one-week grace period to address the issues including repatriation of the three bodies and address of the hardship situation Kenyans living abroad go through.” Maina said.

In November last year, following national outrage over fate of Kenyans illegalilly trafficlked to Saudi Arabia, Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua was engaged in a two-days bilateral crisis talks when he visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia November 2022 without yielding any results to curb the thriving illicit multi-billion-dollar trade.

Two weeks after CS Mutua’s visit in the Saudi, three corpses of Kenyan origin adding to hundreds who sought employment opportunities as domestic workers in the Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries were reported.

Their demise is said to have occurred under unclear circumstances as well.

The families of the three led by Odhiambo from Nakuru whom are unable to cater for the repatriation of their loved ones from the Arab country back home for a befitting send-off have called on the government to help in the facilitation of their transportation and ensure justice to what led to their death.

“We are calling on the government to help bring the bodies back in the country and ensure circumstances leading to the death of our kin is established and justice served,” he said.

The Saudi authorities have threatened to go ahead and burry the three dead bodies should there be no urgent solution from Kenyan counterpart.

Mutua promised to find lasting solutions to the challenges Kenyans continue to experience, starting with institutionalising of reforms as he targets Kenyans, agents, Kenya government officials and Saudi government officials by registering and actualising stringent rules and regulations so as to rescue innocent unsuspecting Kenyans seeking to work in deplorable conditions in the gulf states.

Mutua called on both Governments to unit, fight the vice and pledged to break cartels and the unscrupulous agencies operating in the business.

“It is clear that the problems facing some our people start back home due to flawed and corrupt systems. There is massive corruption in the way Kenyans are prepared before they leave to take up domestic work in Saudi Arabia and their follow up when they arrive,” claimed Mutua.

The CS held bilateral talks with his counterpart His Royal Highness Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Alsoud, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Vice Minister of Labour H.E. Dr. Abdullah Nasser Abuthnain of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to deepen bilateral and trade relations for the benefit of the two countries’ citizens.

During his visit, Mutua also met Kenyans living and working in Saudi Arabia to get first-hand information about the challenges they faced while working there.

Before his travel, the CS met the employment agent representatives to understand their issues and how the government could work to address parties involved amicably which he said the “meeting was informative with complex mind-boggling revelations and a deep cry for help in many instances.”

In its 2020 Trafficking of Persons Report, the US State Department noted that Kenya remains a source, transit point and destination for people subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.

The report observed that the Kenyan government does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.

The department, however, noted that the government has maintained uneven law enforcement efforts.

The Counter-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2010 criminalised sex trafficking and labour trafficking and prescribed penalties of 30 years to life imprisonment, a fine of not less than Sh30 million or both.

These penalties, the US State Department notes, are sufficiently stringent but observes that by allowing for a fine in lieu of imprisonment for sex trafficking, these penalties were not commensurate with those for other serious crimes, such as rape.

A recent report by the National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) shows that the prevalent forms of human trafficking in Kenya are labour and sex related with majority of those trafficked being forced to work in brothels abroad.

According to the report, sex trafficking stands at 53 per cent with labour at 44 per cent with the most affected being women (41 per cent), children (33 per cent) and men (26 per cent).

Kenyans are mostly recruited by legal or illegal employment agencies or voluntarily migrate to Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East particularly Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman.

The report states that they migrate to these countries in search of employment, where they are exploited in domestic servitude, massage parlors and brothels, or forced manual labour.