Jordanian agencies push for lifting of ban on hiring Kenyans

Corporate News

Women protest in Nairobi last month to demand the state lifts the hiring ban of Kenyans to the Middle East. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA 

By LYNET IGADWAH

In Summary

• The agencies say that the Kenyan workers have been accorded favourable working conditions in their country, contrary to what had been reported.

Jordanian agents have sought the intervention of Kenya’s Parliament to help put pressure on government to lift its ban on export of domestic workers to the Arab nation.

The representatives from the Recruiting Agents Association of Jordan (RAAJ) told the parliamentary Labour Committee that the Kenyan workers have been accorded favourable working conditions in their country, contrary to what had been reported.

“Any worker going to Jordan has an insurance cover such that if they want to return home after breach of contract, the insurance pays the employer and the worker gets a return ticket to Kenya,” said general-secretary Rami Asrawi.

Mr Asrawi said a domestic worker from Kenya gets a monthly minimum salary of Sh22,500 “which is much better than the Sh17,500 their counterparts from Bangladesh are getting”.

Domestic workers from Phillipines, however get a higher monthly pay of Sh40,000 which Mr Asrawi, said is in tandem with agreements reached with their respective governments.

He said all salaries are channelled to the workers’ bank accounts, meaning that it is easy to detect when an employer fails to reimburse funds.

The Labour ministry cut export of domestic workers to Jordan after a number of relatives and friends of the beneficiaries reported losing contact with them as soon as they arrived in Amaan, Jordan.

READ: Foreign CS wants total ban on export of domestic workers

Reports indicated the workers are not allowed to have a phone, SIM card or iInternet access by their Jordanian employers who sometimes even went to the extent of confiscating their travel documents.

“Withholding employee travel documents is a crime and no authority or agency is allowed to do such a thing,” said Mr Asrawi, noting the penalty for trafficking in Jordan is seven years.

A task force appointed by Foreign secretary Amina Mohammed to look into issues affecting Kenyans working in the United Arab Emirates recently revealed that the workers there were suffering like “slaves”.

The findings came at the backdrop of a temporary ban on recruitment of domestic workers to the UAE following reports of abuse and human trafficking, imposed by suspended Labour Cabinet secretary Kazungu Kambi.

Mr Kambi revoked licences of more than 900 agencies recruiting workers to the Middle East and the Gulf region in September last year, citing existence of many briefcase agencies.

The agencies, including foreign ones in the country were to undergo fresh vetting and go through the Ministry of Labour before hiring.