New research reveals widespread exploitation of Kenyan workers in Gulf states
A new report finds that nearly all Kenyan migrant workers are exploited in GCC countries, Australia strengthens its modern slavery response, and thousands of unaccompanied child asylum seekers are missing in Austria.
A recent project by Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) has found that nearly all migrant workers who travel to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from Kenya become victims of forced labour. The organization describes such high rates of exploitation as “truly rare if not unprecedented” in current prevalence estimation research and calls for extensive as well as systemic efforts to address the situation.
In partnership with non-partisan research group NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC), GFEMS studied the prevalence of forced labour and human trafficking among recently returned Kenyan migrant workers from Gulf countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as part of a series of projects undertaken with support from the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
The team’s findings, which can be viewed in its report Forced Labor Among Kenyan Migrant Workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: A Prevalence Estimation Report, found that nearly all participants had experienced some form of forced labour, including: enacted or threatened infringement of physical integrity; enacted or threatened restriction of personal freedom including physical movement and/or communication; abusive and coercive employment practices to compel migrant workers to do something they did not want to do; and deceptive contracts, unfair or unsafe work arrangements, or lack of food and shelter. Researchers found that 98.73 per cent of the sample reported having experienced at least one of these four categories of workplace labour abuses, or were unable to exit an abusive employment situation.
NORC also found that 98.7 per cent of workers interviewed experienced trafficking victimization, which it categorized as some form of abuse or unfair labour practice plus the inability to leave out of fear of serious repercussions.
The report makes the following recommendations:
• Remove legal obligations to employers: the most fundamental change likely to bring about the greatest effect in reducing forced labour is to sever the legal obligations a worker has towards their employer.
• Build awareness: the pervasive violations detected in this study suggest that the concept of labour trafficking or forced labour may be foreign to both employers and workers, or society in general.
• Implement policy initiatives to protect migrant workers: the Kenyan government can better protect workers by requiring employers to provide social welfare programs for its workers.
• Detect violations and impose penalties: government agencies in GCC countries should establish dedicated agencies to conduct inspections, with the legal authority to impose significant penalties in order to produce meaningful deterrence effects among employers.
• Establish and scale up emergency shelters and support services in GCC countries: Gulf states need to establish workers’ protection services to rescue or provide emergency shelter and other services to workers seeking to exit their abusive work environment.
The authors flag up a number of limitations to their study, for instance, that findings reflect the experiences of migrants who have recently returned from the GCC as opposed to those who remained and whose return could be due to multiple reasons, and that the impact of COVID-19 has affected employment practices and migrants’ movements across borders, both of which have implications for research results in a post-pandemic era. However, it is hoped that the study will be a call to action for government agencies and non-governmental organizations to find ways to improve and protect workers’ rights, and provide a safe and dignified work environment for Kenyan migrant labourers in the GCC.
Ukraine crisis response: updates from our partners
If your organization is responding to the Ukraine crisis and would like to share an update on the current situation, please get in touch.
Responding organizations have come together to create a flyer to inform refugees about human trafficking risks and how to stay safe. If you have an existing resource, please share it here.
Sources on the ground report ongoing situations that create risks for exploitation and human trafficking. Volunteers are not being vetted, making it easy to infiltrate the system and prey on vulnerable refugees. Unaccompanied and separated children leave Ukraine without being registered, making it difficult to track their onward journey and reunite them with their families. And many refugees do not have a final destination planned out when they cross the border, increasing their vulnerability to fraudulent offers.
Here is a website funded by the Canadian government with anti-trafficking resources for Ukrainian refugees, and another one from IOM and USAID with slightly different content.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy news and initiatives:
Last week, Australia joined 58 other countries in ratifying the International Labour Organization’s Forced Labour Protocol 29. This development builds on Australia’s response to forced labour, which includes the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25, the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), and Australia’s International Engagement Strategy on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, launched last month.
IJM Australia recently conducted an analysis of corporate modern slavery statements and recommendations for extinguishing risk through the protection of workers in South Asia. The research reveals a shocking gap in corporate understanding of both the problem of modern slavery in supply chains and effective and sustainable coordinated responses to address it.
The Austrian government has released figures showing that nearly 4,500 unaccompanied children who applied for asylum in Austria last year have disappeared, amid fears that many are at risk from human traffickers. According to NGOs, the root of the problem is that unaccompanied minors are not immediately assigned a guardian.
Amhara regional security forces and civilian authorities in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone have committed widespread abuses against Tigrayans since November 2020 that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released last week. Ethiopian authorities have severely restricted access to and independent scrutiny of the region, keeping the campaign of ethnic cleansing largely hidden.
This article details the takedown of the largest known child sex abuse site in history through the tracing of Bitcoin transactions, even though users thought their anonymity was guaranteed. Child sexual exploitation cases have traditionally been the focus of FBI and Homeland Security investigations in the U.S., and not the IRS, but the case’s money trail meant it could be approached as a financial investigation.
On 20 April, this webinar will discuss the role of journalists and other media representatives in raising awareness about human trafficking, reducing vulnerabilities and holding governments, law enforcement and businesses to account. The discussion will focus on the cooperation of NGOs and investigative journalists, the expectations of both for such partnerships, and recommendations for more efficient partnerships that respect the independence of journalists.
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