Economy

Ministry posts officials to Middle East over migrant workers

kazungu kambi

Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

The Labour ministry will post officials to the Middle East and Gulf region to fill the void created after it deregistered employment agencies two months ago.

Labour secretary Kazungu Kambi said the ministry’s employment and labour attachés — to be based at Kenya’s embassies — will identify employment opportunities, verify work requirements and announce them to job seekers. The move comes after Mr Kambi revoked licences of 930 recruitment agencies and suspended the movement of domestic workers to the region.

READ: Kambi revokes Middle East job agencies' licences

“The Middle East and Gulf region remain key labour destinations for our unskilled migrant workers. However, numerous cases of Kenyan migrant workers being mistreated and exploited in the region, in some cases resulting to death, are also on the rise,” Mr Kambi said yesterday.

About 100,000 Kenyans are currently in the region, almost half of them in the United Arabs Emirates, according to official statistics. Mr Kambi said that most of them face deplorable working conditions, human rights violations, and exploitation and abuse at the workplace.

“Almost all the countries in the Middle East have no laws to govern employment of domestic workers,” Mr Kambi said when he launched an 11-member task force that is set to develop a policy on export of labour. Kenyans working in the Middle East have in recent years complained of violations ranging from physical assault to racial abuse.

Mr Kambi said the sorry state of migrant workers is further compounded by irregular entry status, making it hard to seek redress from authorities. By 2013, illegal immigrants numbered about 2,000, according to ministry records.

The task force, headed by lawyer Donald Kipkori, is expected to craft a legal framework for labour export and come up with guidelines for registration of employment agencies within three months.

Members of the team include Central Organisation of Trade Unions secretary-general Francis Atwoli, Federation of Kenyan Employers executive director Jacqueline Mugo, and Kenya Private Sector Alliance CEO Carole Kariuki.

Others are Edith Okoki, Mohamud Ahmed, Albert Mwenda, Mike Oloitiptip Sonte, Margaret Mugwanja, Hussein Adan and Scholastica Ndambuki.