Kenya needs to safeguard citizens working abroad

Of late, there have been reports in the media concerning the inhuman plight of overseas Kenyan labourers, especially those in the Arabian Gulf region.

Calls have been made on the government to be more responsive in helping its citizens who face problems in other countries, especially the overseas workers.

The plight of such workers is not unique to Kenya per se, but one that is an epitome of migrant labourers from developing countries to developed or relatively wealthy nations.

Women migrant domestic workers are the worst hit and tend to suffer grave abuses including physical and sexual violence, food deprivation, and confinement in the workplace.

Even migrant male workers are susceptible to similar grave mistreatment at the workplace as their female counterparts.

For instance, the Al-Jazeera TV network reports that many South Asian workers are leaving their homes and families for the promise of money and security in Singapore, only to discover they have been duped and no jobs exist.

They end up being broken men, destitute in a foreign land. These migrants who travel looking for a better life are said to be living on charity, and are worse off now as a result of the effects of the recession.

Indeed Asia supplies much of the world’s migrant workers with the International Labour Organisation noting that the region could have up to 22 million people without a job this year.

Experience from the Philippines, a country known for exporting a large pool of labourers around the world, has equally been faced with such cases among its fleet of legal and illegal overseas foreign workers.

In efforts to streamline government intervention and support, the country established the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in 1982 to promote and develop the overseas employment program, protect the rights of migrant workers, regulate private sector participation in recruitment and overseas placement maintain registry of skills, secure best terms of employment for overseas foreign workers, reinforced regulatory function, and protect the rights of OFW as a worker and human being (http://www.poea.gov.ph).

An average of 3,000 clients and as much as 5,000 clients are noted to be served by the POEA main office daily.

Clients include Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), Licensed Recruitment and Manning Agencies Foreign Employers/Principals Applicants – Workers/ prospective applicants, NGOs, media, and the general public. It is time that Kenya equally adopts such an institution.

But equally to blame are workers who opt not to use established channels to enhance their protection and labour rights while on contract employment abroad. This is no different in the Philippines where the government has been called upon on several occasions to intervene in a number of cases.

For a start however, it is time Kenya establishes structures akin to the POEA to promote and safeguard the interests of workers seeking greener pastures as contract workers abroad.

After all, foreign worker remittances have greatly helped many countries earn much needed foreign exchange, Kenya included. Our large pool of unemployed youth is indeed a ‘gold’ mine whose talents can be well utilized abroad for the sake of development.

Satwinder Rehal

Manila, The Philippines