A reading of these facts is bound to arouse and beg multiple questions in the reader’s mind. To whom or to what can this sad state of affairs be attributed? Is it the victims themselves who willingly take these death trips despite having full knowledge of the carnage that awaits them? Is it the government with its lax laws on relevant issues such as labour migration? Is it the agencies that give these Kenyans a chance to go abroad? These are relevant questions but there are more pressing ones. Whether there lies a remedy in the law that can be availed to the survivors and the families of the deceased victims? Are there existent laws which in the least try to address this issue?
This article seeks to find answers to these conundrums and provide plausible reliefs which if applied might be of much help in mitigating these problems.
To whom the blame should be attributed?
This part of the article seeks to dissect the various reasons that make Kenyans make these death trips and to preclude any doubt as to the fact that the said Kenyans cannot be blamed for the suffering they go through.
Holding an assertion that the Kenyans who go on these deadly escapades do so oblivious to the dangers that lay ahead would be hyperbolic. For days on end, our daily news is rent with reports of the grim treatment that is attended to some Kenyans living and working in Middle Eastern countries. It then follows that some would place the blame fully and solely on the victims, claiming it to be a case of voluntary assumption of risk. This, as will be explained, is a completely misguided and uninformed assertion. The obvious and certainly the most cardinal reason why this category of workers travel is the economic state of the country. The unfortunate victims of abuse of human rights are, rightfully so, driven to travel in search of greener pastures by the economically desolate state of our country since there is an increase in the demand for domestic workers in those countries. Furthermore, most of the victims are deceived as to the nature and conditions of their assignment abroad.
Recent years have seen the poverty levels in the country peak at unprecedented high levels. In 2022, it was reported that 17% of Kenya’s population lived on less than 1.90 dollars a day[1] with the World Bank estimating the poverty levels in the country to drop to 33.4%.[2] The latter-mentioned figures paint a rather clear and irrefutable picture of the dismal state of the Kenyan economy further clarifying why these Kenyans are willing to brave the dangers that are to be attended to them in the Middle Eastern countries.
Further, a mere overview of the troubles that the Kenyans go through while working in the Arabian states should preclude any blame on their part. From cases of Kenyans going without food or water for long periods, to those of them being denied medical care and even being sexually harassed, to those of them receiving grisly beatings administered by their employers as well as those whose salaries were withheld. Cases of the grotesque animosity being administered to Kenyan migrant domestic workers should be enough to absolve them of any blame for their ill-treatment.
From the foregoing, this article establishes who is to blame for the unfortunate events attended to Kenyan migrant labourers in Middle Eastern countries. This shall be addressed in two limbs; first, the recruitment agencies, and, second, the Kenyan government.
- Recruitment agencies
Both licensed and unlicensed international labour recruitment agencies play a major role in the sufferings gone through by Kenyan migrant workers. It is a theory that has time without number been affirmed by various interviewee survivors who luckily make it back into the country alive. Almost all of them can trace the origin of their problems back to the agencies that sent them to their unforeseen doom. Most tell vivid recounts of how happy and excited they were at first upon learning of the unexpectedly quick process and the few procedures that were to be undertaken in landing them their jobs, to how the first pangs of doubt and suspicion hit them when the agents confiscated their passports and other travel documents, to how wistfully shocked most of them were upon reaching their destination country and finding out that they had been deceived about the nature and conditions of the work.[3]
All these sad recollections pique one’s interest in the subject matter of recruitment agencies and how they operate generally. The first point of departure for this is to understand the background of the international labour recruitment industry in Kenya. Kenya’s recruitment industry history is a tumultuous one. It has its roots in colonial times where it ’emerged out of the informal networks of “employment intermediaries” who recruited workers from rural areas into jobs in urban areas and into tea plantations during the 1940s’.[4]
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw recruitment businesses start sending Kenyans to Middle Eastern nations using informal networks that had already existed or those that had been established by Kenyans who had returned from working in the region[5]. In an interview in April 2015, the ministry of labour officers revealed that the number of recruitment firms in Kenya rose from five in 1998 to about a thousand in 2015.[6] This is from a report done over seven years ago concerning only the legal and licensed recruitment agency firms in the country, as of now the numbers are bound to have increased significantly owing to the increased demand for domestic workers in middle eastern countries. It is tedious quantify to the precise number of recruitment agency firms that are in operation within the country seeing as the number of unlicensed agencies is bound to greatly bloat the already saturated labour recruitment industry.
Secondly, it is important to note exactly how these recruitment agencies operate. To do this requires the establishment of a legal framework to regulate their operation. These regulations are set out in the subsidiary legislations of the Labour Institutions Act 2007.[7] The regulations thereunder provide for various criteria including criteria for eligibility for one to be accredited as an employment agency[8] which includes, inter alia, having executed a guarantee of one million Kenyan shillings from a reputable bank or insurance agency in Kenya[9] and having a tax compliance certificate from the Kenya Revenue Authority.[10] The regulations further provide for the eligibility for the registration of a private employment agency[11] which requires an agency to be duly registered as a limited company under the Companies Act and that at least one Kenyan citizen should own shares in it[12] and that it should have a minimum share capital of five million shillings.[13] Similarly, the agencies to be registered should be licensed to carry out business within the country of intended operation.[14] The regulations also stipulate the rules to be followed in the renewal of registration,[15] Likewise the fees to be charged for the registration of a recruitment agency[16] together with those to be charged for the renewal of registration of a recruitment agency[17] for the replacement of a certificate of registration of an agency.[18] These regulations also state that an agency shall charge the principal (who is the employer hiring Kenyans through a registered employment agency) a service fee for the recruitment documentation and placement of workers[19] and states that the costs to be met by the agent or the employer, including the visa fee, airfare and medical examination fees.[20]
Other laws that regulate the activities of recruitment agencies include the Employment Act,[21] which stipulates various provisions for foreign contracts of service including the grounds on which such contracts shall be attested by a Labour Officer.[22] It also requires a security bond to be given by the foreign employer to ensure the due performance of the contract.[23]
At first glance, these regulations may give the impression of seemingly apt methods of regulating the activities of recruitment agencies and ensuring the safety and well-being of Kenyan migrant workers, however as it shall be explained, that assertion could not be any further from the truth.
Many illegal and unregistered recruitment agencies bypass these laid down procedures and even the legal and licensed agencies have found loopholes in the current legal structure. Both the licensed and unlicensed recruitment agencies have managed to find ways with which they manipulate the system to their advantage by minimizing operational costs and increasing profits all whilst precariously risking the safety and well-being of the Kenyan migrant domestic workers.
International recruitment in Kenya has been described to be a low wage high volume business model,[24] where there exists (in the international market) a high demand for low-wage migrant workers, which is subsequently catered for by the large number of unemployed Kenyans who are willing to blindly take up any job opportunity that avails itself to them due to desperation. Since the recruitment agencies are paid in fees and commissions based on how many people they ship away to foreign employers, the more people are recruited the higher the profits that are to be enjoyed by the agencies.[25] This situation creates the perfect breeding ground for the exploitation of the hapless Kenyan migrant workers.
The unlicensed recruitment agencies have been reported to not provide pre-departure training to domestic migrant workers before they go to their destination countries contrary to what is required by the law.[26] According to research done,[27] even some licensed agencies fail to provide the required pre-departure training giving reasons for their failure to comply with the law which includes the government not reimbursing them the money they spend on the training of the domestic migrant workers and further that the women normally cannot afford to pay them anyway. This puts the poor workers in peril as most of them, coming from poor backgrounds, have little to no knowledge as to how to operate some of the machines they find in their foreign employers’ houses, thus resulting in qualms between them and their employers.
Further, both licensed and unlicensed recruitment agencies have been known to use unethical means of lowering the operational costs to be involved in recruiting the intended migrants such as using brokers. These brokers are used as a cheap method of organizing recruitment of labourers who do not live close to the recruitment firm and further the brokers preclude the need for the firms to establish networks of branch offices in various parts of the country.[28] In the end, to the recruitment firms, it is all a question of how to effectively save up on the costs.
The use of brokers in the recruitment process is not legal since it has not been allowed or provided for by any existing Kenyan law, however, the use of brokers is by no means illegal since there is no Kenyan law that criminalizes or prohibits their use,[29] prospective migrant labourers are merely advised against the use of brokers by the ministry of foreign and diaspora affairs,[30] yet there is no legitimate law as at the moment of writing this article which explicitly and expressly bans that use of brokers in the recruitment process. Using this legal loophole, recruitment agencies have cunningly been able to comfortably use brokers without hesitation or fear of breaking the law thereby minimizing operational costs despite the use of brokers being largely unethical.
However, to a very large extent, unlicensed recruitment agencies pose a great threat and danger to Kenyan migrant workers. It had been reported at one point that these illegal agencies perpetrated the crime of human trafficking against oblivious Kenyan victims by colluding with employees at the international embassies in Kenya and giving the victims off to forced labour and untold suffering in the hands of their Arabian employers.[31] The racketeers were reported to have lured the unwitting Kenyan victim with promises of job opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. The trafficking of people is considered a criminal offence under Kenyan law as per the Counter Trafficking in Persons Act which further prohibits any recruitment firm from being involved in any action that may be termed as involving the trafficking of persons.[32]
If a list were to be made about the horrid and grisly treatment meted on the Kenyan victims, it would be endless, however, a small list will be made below of just but a few of the sufferings the Kenyans go through. Some of the wrongs committed against the migrant workers that are perpetrated by the recruitment agencies include but are not limited to;
- Charging exorbitant recruitment fees and paying them through salary reductions
This is an evil committed by both licensed and unlicensed recruitment agencies depending on whether it was the agency or the foreign employer who paid for the travel expenses. Provided that it is the agency which pays for the travel expenses (which include services such as airfare, medical examination and visa fee), the agency will reimburse itself this money by deducting the amount they spent from the salary of the migrant worker as long as it takes until they recover the money they spent. This is allowed by Kenyan law and as such nothing stops them from doing so, even worse is the fact that nothing stops them from deceptively trying to recover more than what they spent from the salary of the poor migrant workers. Further, some recruiters have been reported to withhold the migrant workers’ salaries to prevent them from running away,[33] leading to debt bondage which has been identified as forced labour and subsequently prohibited by the International Labour Organization[34] to which Kenya is a signatory.
- Deception as to the details and particulars of the job applied for by the migrant labourers
Many migrant domestic workers who leave the country report being misled about the details of the jobs they apply for. In many instances, there exists a striking variance between the content of the employment contract signed by the migrant worker and what applies when they get to their destination countries.[35] In many of these instances, the migrant workers have complained of a difference in the salary amount that the contract indicated to be paid to them and the salary that is paid to them by their employers. Further, there are reported variances in the job description delivered to the domestic migrant workers by the recruitment agencies verbally concerning things such as who the employer is going to be as well as the house size and the amount of work to be done.[36]
- Lack of provision of the appropriate travel visas
It has been reported that some of the agencies, more specifically the illegal and unlicensed ones, may at times issue the migrant domestic workers with student or visitor visas instead of work permits due to the reason that the student or visitor visas are ‘cheap, easier to obtain and do not require employer sponsorships, the processing of which can take time’.[37] These visas however pose a lot of hurdles to the migrant worker as they do not provide them with any labour rights and can leave them in a position where they stand the risk of deportation or detention, losing their job and failing to be able to recoup their recruitment fees.[38]
- Failure to provide channels of communication between the migrant workers and the agencies
In many of their interviews, migrant workers who have returned to the country often tell of the fact that they leave the country without being provided with the contact details of the agencies that sent them to the destination countries leaving the Kenyan nationals largely unprotected in the foreign nations.[39]
- The Kenyan Government
This subpart faults the government of Kenya over some of the sufferings meted upon the migrant workers. To date, there have been multiple mass upheavals by people across the nation mostly on social media as citizens express their dismay on the subject when news reaches the home of the maltreatment of the Kenyans working in the Gulf region. What always follows these upheavals is a statement from the relevant government department which assures the nation that action is being taken to ensure that such violations of human rights would not be visited upon the Kenyan migrant workers abroad ever again. Just as night follows day, these two instances always follow each other without fail. These statements are seldom ever followed by any significant actions. They are made in what usually seems to be a belated attempt on the government’s part to show the incompetent and nonchalant effort attended to an issue which is of great concern.
The government has failed to provide apt and pragmatic solutions to this problem on multiple occasions. The labour migration laws in the country remain to be a nine of great contention, they are not as pronounced as those of other countries. Further, the existent laws are not apt in addressing the issues. The loopholes that exist in the current legal framework are constantly manipulated to perpetrate the abuses of human rights against migrant Kenyan domestic workers.
Firstly, the government has repeatedly been known to offer highly unprovable solutions which lack pragmatism. At one point, the State Department for Diaspora Affairs suggested that Kenyans who were undergoing any hardships should reach out for help by posting videos on social media platforms such as TikTok to gain the government’s attention.[40] This solution is wholly unsustainable. Most of the workers work round the clock and barely ever have the time for sleep no less the time to record videos and post them. Further, assuming that the domestic workers do manage to post these videos, the odds that they will reach the relevant government officers are extremely low.
In another instance, the ministry for foreign affairs attributed the problems faced by Kenyans in the Gulf region to the lack of pre-departure training that is to be offered to the domestic workers, alluding to the solution to the hardships faced by the Kenyans to train them through the agencies that send them there.[41] This is also another erroneous assertion since to allude that the solution to the problems being experienced by the migrant Kenyans is mere training will be an incredulous fallacy. Although it is a solution, but not an all-encompassing one. To suggest such a thing would be tantamount to being oblivious to the numerous other causative factors that contribute to the mistreatment being visited onto the domestic Kenyan employees working abroad and thus subsequently being oblivious of the various solutions that would be used to aptly address those individual issues.
Secondly, the Kenyan government has failed to enact foolproof laws tailored towards addressing the legal framework surrounding the issue of migrant workers. The current laws that seek to address the issue concerning labour migration in the country are quite literally vague and full of inadequacies, inadequacies which have been harnessed and manipulated to best serve the recruitment agencies and put the Kenyan workers in a precarious position. For instance, there have not been any laws that prohibit the use of brokers in the country whose use in the recruitment process is wholly unethical and detrimental to migrant workers.[42] Some of the laws prescribed have been known to leave migrant workers at the mercy of recruitment agencies in terms of payment of recruitment fees.[43] These are just some of the few examples of the existent laws that do not fully cater for the needs of migrant workers. It is worthy to note that the laws that can be described as pragmatic, to some extent, have been enacted by the foreign destination nations, such as the ‘Musaned’ which was launched in 2014 and aims at introducing the rights and duties of the worker, the employer and procedures to be followed all under one umbrella.[44]
Thirdly, the Kenyan government is not a signatory to some very significant international conventions which go a long way to ensure the protection of Kenyan migrant workers while abroad, for instance, Kenya is not a signatory to the Domestic Worker Convention which aims to protect the which aims at protecting domestic workers and which has specific clauses relating to recruitment.[45]
Recommendations
This part of the article seeks to provide possible solutions to some of the problems cited in the previous sections. These solutions may be considered as suggestions which have the propensity to effect long-lasting and expeditious change regarding the issue of Kenyan migrant domestic workers in the Gulf region.
The solutions are listed below;
- The government should endeavour to enact foolproof laws that fully speak to the safety and well-being of the migrant workers, the appropriate starting point of which would be to abolish the laws that covertly place the burden of payment of the recruitment fees on the shoulders of the migrant domestic workers. This would preclude and protect the migrant workers from the risk of being exposed to exorbitant extortion by the recruitment agencies as the latter seeks to increase their profit margin. Further, the enactment of express laws that explicitly outlaw the use of brokers in the recruitment process would go a long way in ensuring that migrant workers are protected from exploitation as brokers have been known to charge the aspirant domestic workers for recruitment fees.[46]
- The Kenyan government should seek to emulate its various international counterparts such as Saudi Arabia which has established a system that goes a step further in addressing the recruitment industry as a whole, not only on the local level but also the on the bilateral international level. Through the creation, and subsequent incorporation into the recruitment industry, of systems such as the Musaned Domestic Labour Program, the Saudi Arabian kingdom has managed to find a seemingly all-encompassing solution to deal with the issues surrounding labour migration into the country.
The system has been described as a platform that is guided by relevant governed ministries such as the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development and which seeks to provide a system to integrate and organize labour recruitment process from the offering countries, digitally authenticate contracts between the intended employer and the intended labourer and organizes the contractual relationship between the private recruitment offices and the external recruitment offices.[47]
This system has helped the Saudi Arabian government to kill four birds with one stone, it has addressed all the relevant and necessary offices and institutions at both the local and international levels and provided laws by which both sides should abide. It then falls on the Kenyan government to create such a system and doing so would help perturb the status quo concerning labour migration in the country.
- The Kenyan government should task itself with the encumbrance of directing the relevant government ministries, such as the Ministry of Labour as well as that of Foreign Affairs to create an amalgamate department which will seek to educate the migrant labourers on issues such as their rights as labourers, the contractual obligations that concern them as well as their prospective employees, the salaries they are entitled to etc. The department should also be the one to equip the domestic migrant workers with the relevant training rather than leaving it to the discretion of the recruitment agencies which have proven to lack any concern as to the matter. The department should be the one to liaise with the foreign destination government on matters concerning the migrant workers and how to best ensure their safe accommodation. The creation of such a department would address many of the issues discussed in this article in its latter sections.
- The government should ratify the various international treaties and conventions that seek to protect the rights of workers across the world, more specifically those addressing migrant workers. Such an international convention includes the Domestic Worker Convention, which seeks to address the plight and the rights of domestic workers, mostly women. This convention is very apt in addressing the issues that concern the migrant domestic workers, so much so that it even addresses and outlaws matters concerning fraudulent processes such as fraudulent recruitment, placement and employment. As a country, we stand more to lose, in terms of the lives of our fellow countrymen, by the refusal of the government to be a signatory to such an international convention.
- The government should begin investigations into the murders of Kenyan migrant workers and seek to bring the perpetrators into account. The government should work with the governments of the destination countries in which the Kenyan migrant domestic workers die and seek to find the persons responsible for the murders and their accomplices if any and bring them all to book. This would in effect bring about the element of retribution which would be to cater for the families of the deceased victims by giving the families some semblance of peace and justice amidst their mournful miasmas.
- The government should also take steps in ensuring that the deeply rooted corruption that besets the whole system of labour migration in the country is mitigated and brought to a halt. It is the corrupt and unethical business practices taken up by the recruitment agencies to maximize and increase their profit margin that sees the lives and financial security of the Kenyan migrant workers put in harm’s way. The government would address this issue by closer scrutiny of the activities of the recruitment agencies, most especially the illegal and unlicensed ones. The government should seek to root out these corrupt activities by outlawing them and prosecuting all those involved in them to protect the interests and lives of Kenyan migrant worker
Conclusion
The matters surrounding labour migration remain to be a bone of great contention in our country’s context. Even more disheartening is the fact that there exists a system which has time and again for years on end, been used to perpetrate these crimes against humanity and which remains largely untampered and unchecked. The workings and results of this system are plagued by many conundrums, but as this article espouses, these conundrums are not without probative recommendations. The suggested solutions in this article are admittedly not the be-all and end-all, however, if realized through expeditious implementation, they can go a long way in reinstating a process that has long since veered off track, to the benefit of the Kenyans which would inevitably to some length to brighten up the famously brooding visage that is the Kenyan recruitment industry.
[1] Lars Kamer, ‘Extreme poverty rate in Kenya’ (Statista.com 6 September 2022)<https://www.statista.com/statistics/1227076/extreme-poverty-rate-in-kenya/%23:~:text%3DIn%25202022%252C%252017%2520percent%2520of,whom%2520were%2520in%2520rural%2520areas.&ved=2ahUKEwiP89GFq979AhWExqQKHSAvDCUQFnoECA0QBQ&usg=AOvVaw3gcH8mhPw6umItF6ZpR7BI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[2] Otiato Guguyu, ‘Half a million Kenyans out of extreme poverty’ (Businessdailyafrica.com 12 May 2022)<https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/half-a-million-kenyans-out-of-extreme-poverty-3812372%3Fview%3Dhtmlamp&ved=2ahUKEwiwm42jsd79AhXNyKQKHYKpC8sQFnoECAsQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3cpOsh-VzUvymgwxuAEPN_> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[3] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya, (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Labour Institutions Act, 2007.
[8] Labour Institutions (General) Regulations, 2014, S 3.
[9] Labour Institutions (General) Regulations, 2014, S 3(g).
[10] Labour Institutions (General) Regulations, 2014, S 3(f).
[11] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 3.
[12] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 3 (a).
[13] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 3(d).
[14] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 3(e).
[15] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 6.
[16] Labour Institutions (Registration Fees) Regulations, 2015, S 2(a).
[17] Labour Institutions (Registration Fees) Regulations, 2015, S 2(b).
[18] Labour Institutions (Registration Fees) Regulations, 2015, S 2(c).
[19] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 7.
[20] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 8.
[21] Employment Act, 2007.
[22] Employment Act, 2007, S 84.
[23] Employment Act, 2007, S 85.
[24] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya, (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Brian Otieno, ‘Hiring Agencies deny sending untrained domestic workers to Saudi’ The Star (7 February 2023)<https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-02-07-hiring-agencies-deny-sending-untrained-domestic-workers-to-saudi/> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[27] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, ‘Advice to Prospective Migrant Workers’ (MFA.go.ke)<https://mfa.go.ke/advice-to-prospective-migrant-workers/> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[31] Editorial, ‘How embassy staff collude with cartels to con Kenyans’ Nation Newspaper (3 July 2020)<https://nation.africa/kenya/news/how-embassy-staff-collude-with-cartels-to-con-kenyans–805726> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[32] Counter-Trafficking in Persons Act, 2010, S 5(c).
[33] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[34] SAP-FL, ILO ‘Indicators of Forced labour’ (1 October 2012)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_203832/lang–en/index.htm> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[35] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Kioko Nyamasio, ‘Government announces how it will rescue Kenyans stuck in Saudi Arabia’ Kenyans.co.ke (30 December 2022)<https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/83579-govt-announces-how-it-will-rescue-kenyans-stuck-saudi-arabia> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[41] Brian Otieno, ‘Hiring agencies deny sending untrained domestic workers to Saudi’ The Star (7 February 2023)<https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-02-07-hiring-agencies-deny-sending-untrained-domestic-workers-to-saudi/> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[42] International Labour Organization, The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[43] Labour Institutions (Private Employment Agencies) Regulations, 2016, S 8.
[44] Joy Kwama, ‘Saudi Government Introduces Recruitment Fee Cap and Other Changes for Kenyan Workers’ Kenyans.co.ke (17 January 2023)<https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/84279-saudi-govt-introduces-recruitment-fee-cap-other-changes-kenyan-workers> accessed on 15 March 2023.
[45] Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189).
[46] International Labour Organization, ‘The Migrant Recruitment Industry: Profitability and Unethical Business Practices in Nepal, Paraguay and Kenya’ (13 September 2017)<https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/fair-recruitment/WCMS_574484/lang–en/index.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiIieGdst79AhVKDuwKHbxXCIMQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HIm8DReFbLGzMLwuMbayI> accessed on 14 March 2023.
[47] Anas Shaker, ‘The What and How of Saudi’s Musaned system’ (Migrant Rights.Org 15 November 2019)<https://www.migrant-rights.org/2019/09/the-what-and-how-of-saudis-musaned-system/> accessed on 15 March 2023.
