Employment Court orders government to protect Kenyans working in the Middle East

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has ordered state agencies to immediately tighten enforcement of foreign labour contracts and require recruitment agencies to post a security bond for Kenyan migrant workers in the Middle East.

The ruling, issued on Friday, July 3, found the government accountable for failing to protect Kenyan workers sent to the Middle East who have faced modern-day slavery, human trafficking, violence, rape and death and found that the state failed to intervene.

The court said it was persuaded that migrant workers “were exposed to violations of their fundamental rights against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, torture, slavery and servitude, right to dignity and life” and had been subjected to unfair labour practices.

In its judgment, the court declared that victims of abuses in the Middle East “were and are entitled to effective protection by the State” against trafficking, violence, deportation and rape, adding that the government “failed, neglected and has abdicated” that responsibility.

Judges further ruled that the government’s failures violated citizens’ rights under the 2010 Constitution, as well as provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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As part of the remedies, the court directed the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comply with and enforce existing laws on foreign contracts of service in the Middle East, including a requirement that recruitment agents deposit a security bond.

The judgment drew on precedent from a 2013 case that arose after the government temporarily banned the migration of domestic workers to the Middle East over similar concerns.

Citing a South African Constitutional Court ruling, the court said that the advancement of human rights “is a thread that runs throughout the Constitution” and requires the government to act positively to protect citizens from abuses, even those occurring abroad.

The ruling comes as the number of Kenyans seeking work overseas continues to climb. 

There are an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Kenyans working and residing across the Middle East, with the vast majority concentrated in the Gulf States, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Government estimates indicate 310,000 Kenyans are working in Saudi Arabia alone as domestic labourers, drivers, guards and other jobs.

Rights groups and reporting by The New York Times have documented at least 274 Kenyan worker deaths in Saudi Arabia over the past five years, including 55 in a single year, with many autopsy reports attributing deaths to natural causes despite families describing signs of abuse.

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