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US: Kenya's actions on ending human trafficking inadequate
Labour Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie at Social Security House in Nairobi in December 2016. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
An assessment puts the country in, for the third consecutive year, the Tier 2 category in the US global ranking of compliance with Washington’s anti-trafficking standards.
Those in this category fall short of the standards but are making “significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards”.
NEW YORK CITY, Tuesday
Kenya is striving to end human trafficking but government actions remain inadequate in several respects, the United States Department said today.
An assessment puts the country in, for the third consecutive year, the Tier 2 category in the US global ranking of compliance with Washington’s anti-trafficking standards.
Those in this category fall short of the standards but are making “significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards”.
Kenya last year launched a national referral mechanism and issued registration requirements and a code of conduct for private labour recruitment agencies, the report said, and added information on its anti-trafficking law to the basic police training curricula.
ATTACHÉS ASSIGNED
In addition, the Ministry of Labour has assigned labour attachés to Kenyan missions in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to protect citizens employed in those countries.
The government was also found to be falling short of minimal standards in several key areas. For instance, it did not allocate funding to a victim assistance fund last year after providing Sh7 million in 2015, the report said.
“Kenyan authorities continued to treat some victims as criminals, and the availability of protective services for adult victims remained negligible,” the US asserted.
