Janice: A Human Trafficking Story
January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and we would like to share the story of someone with personal ties to eduKenya, with her permission. Janice (pseudonym), the 35-year-old mother of one of our Kwa Watoto School students, was recently the victim of debt bondage and forced labor in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a major destination country for Kenyan victims of trafficking. Recruitment agencies organize visas yearly for over 17,000 Kenyans to work in Saudi Arabia.To understand why Janice willingly put herself in harm’s way, we interviewed her about her life and decisions. Janice dropped out of school when she was six because of extreme poverty. She became pregnant with her first child at the age of 13 and now has five children. To support her children, she used to collect old shoes at the dump and sell them to a cobbler, but after Nairobi City Council shut down the largest dump in the heart of Mathare, she was out of work.Janice was approached by a Middle East “recruitment agency” in Nairobi that entices Kenyans with a promise of good pay and easy work. According to Awareness Against Human Trafficking (HAART), an organization working to end human trafficking in Kenya, unscrupulous recruitment agencies supply a constant source of men, women and children used for forced labor and sex trafficking. The Middle East is a common destination point for Kenyan recruits into human trafficking.Janice’s work assignment was in the Arab state of Saudi Arabia. Upon recruitment, she agreed to be a domestic worker for one family. She looked forward to the promised pay of $100/month, and the assurance that the work would be easy thanks to modern conveniences – vacuums, clothes washers, dryers, and dishwashers.Leaving her children with her mother in Mathare, Janice arrived in Saudi Arabia, where the excitement about wages and cleaning machines rapidly paled. The agency subjected Janice to several common practices used to trap people into servitude and exploitation. As soon as she arrived, the agency confiscated her passport and did not allow her to register with the Kenyan embassy. She did not have access to a telephone, no one around her spoke the Swahili language, and she could not appear in public without male accompaniment. Informed that all wages would go to the recruitment agency to cover the cost of travel expenses, Janice became victim to debt bondage.The agency placed Janice in a compound of five family homes as the only domestic worker. Besides cleaning five homes, she was expected to be nanny to “a horde of small children.” At night, once the children were in bed and she finished the household chores, she had to walk one-half mile and milk the family camels. On the walk, local herdsmen sexually harassed her, even though she was in the company of a man from the household. Janice received one meal per day, averaged two hours of sleep per night, and worked in stifling hot conditions dressed in an abaya, the required black cloak and head covering of Arabian women.Within 2 months, the environment, workload, and long hours took their toll on Janice. Severe chronic nosebleeds necessitated a visit to a doctor, where she was diagnosed with a low blood platelet count and severe anemia. The doctor told the family to send her back to Kenya, and they complied. Janice feels fortunate because Kenyans in servitude in the Middle East rarely receive medical care or return home so easily. This became clear on the journey home to Nairobi as she traveled with others who had endured extreme mental and physical abuse before they escaped and took asylum at the Kenyan Embassy.Janice arrived home without earning a penny for her hard labor. She is now living with her children in her mother’s house, supported by her mother. Her health is much improved and her children are happy that she is back. Janice is appreciating Kenya’s mild climate, the freedom to move about without hindrance, and to speak openly in her native language. However, she feels shame at returning home with only the clothes on her back.Janice struggles to find odd jobs to help pay bills. The challenge for Janice, like many young single mothers in Mathare, is a lack of patience and desire to learn a skill that will offer a steady income. She will not train in eduKenya Skills Training Program or the Community Support Ministry. Like many others, she wants quick money and looks with contempt on lower wages available in Mathare.When asked if she would recommend work in the Middle East to other people, Janice vehemently shakes her head. Therefore, it is incredible that she is making plans to travel to Syria for work! When asked why she would return to the Middle East where she had recently been compelled to work in undesirable conditions with no pay, she says she thinks it will be better the next time! According to HAART, even though victims of trafficking lacked the most basic needs, and experienced food insecurity and deep trauma, many are at risk for re-trafficking.The eduKenya vision is that all children and their families in Mathare experience fullness of life through economic, social and spiritual transformation. We work to make this a reality by empowering children and their families with the opportunity to break the chronic cycle of poverty and transform their lives and communities. We believe that educating more children and training more adults will reduce the risk of our community members willingly entering into bondage.Please pray that Janice will not test God by returning to the land from which He once rescued her. Pray that He will change her views about training for a skill in Mathare and that she will not return to the Middle East. If she does return, pray for her protection.According to HAART, Human Trafficking occurs when a person is induced by force, fraud or coercion to:
Pauline Ng’ang’a and Kathie Friedel