Sold into slavery

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”
— Article 4, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

Slavery, as loosely defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ended in the 19th Century, but various forms of it have persisted over the years. Only recently did the powers that be realise that there is an even bigger monster slowly chipping away on society, and the name of that beast is Human Trafficking, the modern day version of slave trade.

The UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of threat or force or other forms of coercion ... for the purpose of exploitation”.

The tragedy, however, is that, whenever people talk of ‘human trafficking’, what comes to mind is various forms of slavery in faraway lands, yet a study conducted last year in East Africa revealed that, much as there are dozens of people being exploited beyond their national borders, local human trafficking is still vibrant.

The Survey — Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children in East Africa — concludes that the region has elements of culture that “encourage human trafficking”. Prepared by a Dutch organisation in conjunction with the Koinonia Advisory and Development Service (KARDS), the report says some of these retrogressive cultural elements involve lack of concern for laws about migration.

“Migration issues are barely included in political agendas and hardly discussed by national governments,” it says. And, with the recent commissioning of the East African Common Market Protocol — an arrangement that allows people from the region to move freely within the East African economic bloc — things could take a turn for the worst.

So far, only Tanzania has passed legislation against human trafficking, yet the US believes the region is an illegal source (and transit point) of the illegal trade. In Kenya, all indicators point to a spiralling rise in the vice, and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned that the post-election violence of 2007, coupled with poverty and drought, have contributed heavily to the rise of the vice.

This is mainly because people, left helpless and hopeless by these calamities, begin to desire for a better life, and hence become easy prey to any trafficker with a sweet tongue. Patrick Mudogo, one of the researchers at KARDS, says the vice has affected more females than males locally.

“Young girls are normally the preferred choice as domestic workers,” he says. “At the coast and other tourist havens, these girls are also the most popular with sex tourists.” Mr Mudogo laments that, although the vice is common knowledge, the state has done little to demonise it and, as a result, very few people know that hiring a minor as a domestic worker, for example, is illegal.

The Children’s Act forbids anyone employing a person below the age of 18, and attracts a year behind bars or Sh50,000 should one be found guilty. Across the borders, things are even nastier for those who are unfortunate enough to fall victims of this scheme. No one illustrates this better than Ms Fatma Athman, a Kenyan woman who flew home from Saudi Arabia in January with broken limbs and a gory tale of how employers fed her on remnants, sexually assaulted her and worked her like a beast.

She had been promised a better life by her employers, but the bait was withdrawn immediately she landed at the airport. At her employer’s home, she was handed a 22-hour-a-day work schedule, a single meal per day, constant beatings and sexual harassment by male relatives of the boss.

Yet, despite all this, hordes still troop to employment agencies in search of that opportunity to better their lives. Mr Festus Mutuse, the chief registration officer for employment bureaus at the Ministry of Labour, says agents qualify for registration only if they are Kenyans or, if foreigners, possess valid travel documents. They must also have a registered business name with a known physical address, and must possess a certificate of good conduct.

However, even after recent cases of trafficking this year, the government is yet to halt the operations of these rogue businesses, and insists that anyone recruiting a Kenyan employee for a foreign job must give a detailed description of the job, the terms of reference and the duration of employment before departure.

Kenya does not have laws designed specifically to curb human trafficking. The courts use the Children’s Act (2001) and the Sexual Offences Act (2007) to mete justice against offenders in this category, even though observers say the penalties are way too lenient. This even after Kenya ratified the UN Protocol to Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons in 2004.

By signing this agreement, member states commit themselves to make local laws against the crime. But there is hope. Nominated MP Millie Odhiambo-Mabona’s Counter Trafficking in Persons Bill has already gone through the third reading Parliament and, if passed, will help Kenya comply with the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNCTOC).

The Bill seeks to illegalise, among others, forced labour, bonded labour (forcing one to work for you as payment to what they owe you) and sexual exploitation. “Anyone who will be found recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion... for the purpose of exploitation will be guilty of a punishable offence,” it reads in part.

This is expected to complement provisions in the Children’s Act and the Sexual Offences Act. It will mean, for instance, that no parent will submit their underage children to work on plantation farms or in people’s homes for payment. It will also mean that no one can ferry another to another place, with the promise of employment, only for the trafficked person to be underpaid, overworked or raped as this would amount to ‘exploitation’.

Penalties

Ms Odhiambo-Maboma proposes that the penalties range from a million shillings or 10 years in jail to up to Sh10 million or 15 years in the slammer, but has allowed further amendments to make the penalties stiffer — up to 30 years in jail or Sh30 million in fine. “We focus more on elements of the crime. That is, two or more people working in an organised manner to effect exploitation,” Ms Odhiambo-Maboma says.

Many victims of human trafficking have claimed that agencies recruit them under a certain agreement but enter into a different one with employers. In turn, employees do not enter any agreement with their employers and, if they do, the signature or the beneficiary is the agent.

Article 3.9b of the Bill proposes that, where a person trafficked is harmed or dies, the persons involved will be punished. Under the current situation, agents usually vanish as soon as the deals are done.