Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu has narrated an incident where a family lost property to rogue agents in a bid to secure a job abroad for their son.
Speaking on Wednesday, May 17, in an interview with NTv, Njogu said the family sold property to facilitate their son’s trip to a Middle east country through an agent who organized all the necessary documents, including flight tickets for the man.
The man was advised to meet the agent at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where he would take a flight to the Middle East.
He was later informed that plans had changed and that he would take his flight from Wilson Airport. He was accompanied by the agent to Wilson Airport, where he took his flight to the Middle East only to land in Eldoret.
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“This is an unfortunate story but there is a family that sold a lot of their wealth to send their young man for a job in the middle east. They were cheated by a rogue agent who met them at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
“He then told them that the flight had changed and it was being taken at Wilson Airport. So the man boarded the flight and landed in Eldoret, and unfortunately, it is not in the diaspora,” said Njogu.
With the high rate of unemployment in the country, hundreds of thousands of youths, especially girls, have opted to dip their nets in the Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Qatar, in the hope of catching at least a fish to quench their hunger.
While some have lost huge sums to unscrupulous agents, most of those who get lucky to land a job in the gulf end up in traps of ill-treatment and abuse.
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Njogu further warned job seekers against applying for some Visas advertised online as some are advertised by criminals who end up indulging them in illegal jobs.
“Another huge problem we have is human trafficking, where you see an advert and apply, and the Visas are processed in a strange way; you are given a tourist visa instead of a work permit. They even pay for your ticket, and when you land, you realize that there was no job,”
“You are put in a van, and what happens to many of these Kenyans is that they end up in compounds with tall walls that are guarded.
“They are involved in cybercrime where they create several social media profiles to catfish rich people to send money. If you are not successful, life gets very bad because you can be sold into slavery or you can lose a kidney,’ she said.
Njogu said the government last year rescued about 80 Kenyans who were trafficked in the name of job opportunities abroad.
