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The Nairobian

Create jobs for Kenyans who don't want to work abroad

Opinion

By Njahira Gitahi | Sep 17, 2024

President William Ruto and Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz at State House, Nairobi. [File, Standard]

President Ruto, during his trip to Germany last week, was able to secure a deal that would allow skilled and semi-skilled Kenyans to move to Germany for work. Already, the scheme has begun with five bus drivers now working in Germany. As we know, securing employment abroad for Kenyans has been a major project of the President and this is just one of several deals signed with other countries and some corporations.

Indeed, ensuring that the youths are employed should be amongst the top priorities of any government, particularly with a country like Kenya, where a majority of the population is relatively young. The question posed, however, is whether these opportunities should be found in one’s own home country, or whether they should be secured abroad. Do Kenyans have a right to demand that their homeland provides them with all that they need to be self-actualised humans, including employment?

It seems that long gone are the days when we would be taught in school about the harmful effects of brain drain, in a bid to encourage us to utilise the skills we gather through education in building the nation. Now, we are strongly encouraged by the government of the day to leave and seek greener pastures outside because there is no room for us at home.

That the President has adopted an ideology that insists on leaving home to build a future is made further worrying by the fact that the connections secured do not guarantee safety for Kenyan citizens. One long standing agreement has been between Kenya and Middle Eastern countries where our citizens work as domestic workers. While many of those that go to work in the Middle East survive the experience, a good number return with stories of severe mistreatment at the hands of their employers, including having their movement curtailed and facing physical abuse, even whilst grappling with the language barrier and foreign culture.

Others, still, return to the country in body bags, having been murdered by their employers, and with no justice being served for the heinous crimes committed. For the government, the policy should be that one death is too many, and yet instead it continues to encourage migration to the Middle East, signing even larger employment deals than before.

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The most that our vulnerable workers in the region can get is some reassurance that the Foreign Office will be taking care of them, but it is rather difficult to seek safety when you are locked up or dead.

Because of this lack of care and prioritisation of migrating the youth outside of the country for work at any cost, it becomes easy for Kenya to sign a deal with Germany without considering the racial ramifications of such an agreement. Germany has an aging population and is in dire need of foreign workers to fill in the gaps. But Germany also has a rising fascist movement that is particularly resistant to immigration, and more so where the immigration is in the form of people of colour.

Already, Germans are notorious for expressing their negative feelings towards refugees seeking asylum from Arab and Asian nations, arguing that they bring with them Islamisation and are a threat to their women and girls. This xenophobic rhetoric is already being extended towards Kenyans.

The recent news of the deal to import 250,000 workers was met with racist vitriol across social media and news websites, with the overwhelming sentiment being that the Germans do not want our kind infiltrating their nation, possibly even assimilating and taking over entirely. With this in mind, anyone taking up the jobs on offer might have to brace for impact in the face of racism and racial hate crimes.

Meanwhile, those of us who refuse to leave home continue to hope that our country will work for us so that we can find all that we need here. It is our right to have access to the resources we need locally, and it is the government’s duty to work towards providing them.

Ms Gitahi is an international lawyer