Kenya to set up safe houses in Middle East for workers in distress
Labour and Social Protection Cabinet Secretary Florence Bore. The CS has said priority will be given to Saudi Arabia, where numerous distress cases have been reported.
The government will establish safe houses in the Gulf to shelter migrant workers in distress before they are repatriated.
Labour and Social Protection Cabinet Secretary Florence Bore said priority will be given to Saudi Arabia, where numerous distress cases have been reported.
The move, she said, is part of a multi-faceted approach to end the plight of Kenyan migrant workers in the Middle East covering Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
A report by the ministry last year revealed that 93 Kenyan migrant workers have died in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the past three years.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Labour and Social Welfare yesterday, Ms Bore explained that Sh60 million has already been set aside by her ministry in the financial year ending June 30, 2023, to establish a safe house in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
He said that other cities targeted are Jeddah and Dammam in Saudi Arabia and in Qatar, following a 2021 Cabinet approval.
Read: How Kafala system in Arab Gulf states is leading to the death of Kenyan girls
“The national policy on labour migration has proposed the establishment of safe houses as temporary shelter for migrant workers in distress before the transition to another employment or repatriation,” said Ms Bore.
She was responding to a statement by Kitui Senator Enock Wambua on the plight of Kenyan migrant workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.
The CS said there are more than 200,000 Kenyans in the Middle East, according to 2019 data from her ministry. However, the government has only facilitated 87,784 Kenyan workers to work in the Middle East since 2019.
Welfare fund
She said she will push for the operationalisation of the Kenyan Migrant Workers Welfare Fund, established in February 2021, to provide protection, welfare and assistance to Kenyan migrant workers during migration.
Further, the CS explained that they will insist on pre-departure training programmes for the workers before they depart the country to curb against culture shocks upon arrival in the destination country.
“The challenges associated with pre-departure training mainly affect unskilled and semi-skilled workers. The training is therefore critical in assisting them to acquaint themselves to the new environment in the host country,” she said.
She admitted that supervision and monitoring of recruitment agencies have been a key challenge even though the vetting and licensing of recruitment agencies has served to weed out many bogus agencies.
However, she said the ministry, in collaboration with the International Organisation for Migration, has established an oversight mechanism as well as a community feedback mechanism.
Regulation review
The CS added that the ministry is in the process of reviewing the regulation of private employment agencies with a view to enhancing ethical recruitment and increasing accountability.
According to Bore, information handbooks for all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been developed to reinforce pre-departure training.
The handbook provides basic information to potential and departing migrants to ease their transition into the country of destination and help them maximise the benefits of their overseas employment.
“The information provided includes how to get a job, what to do before departure, what to do when you arrive, working and living abroad and how to return home,” she said.
Ms Bore told the committee led by West Pokot MP Julius Murgor that the government is reviewing four bilateral labour agreements signed with the governments of Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia to improve terms and conditions of service, enhance the protection of Kenyan migrant workers and increase the cadres of the skills and professional workers covered by the agreement.
The weaknesses identified include wage protection measures, protection of travel and identity documents, skills recognition, social security and health benefits, access to complaints mechanisms, weak regulatory frameworks for private employment agencies and limited mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation.
