Many African governments, including Kenya’s, are increasingly leveraging labor export as a “quick fix” for domestic unemployment, often at the expense of workers’ welfare and human rights. Kenya’s labor brokerage model exemplifies this dynamic, where the state, in collaboration with private sector actors, facilitates the export of low-cost workers while profiting from their vulnerabilities long before they even depart. This system prioritizes economic gains, such as remittance inflows, over the rights and welfare of its citizens, often ignoring the exploitative conditions that define these arrangements. Francis Atwoli, the Secretary-General of the Central Organization of Trade Unions—who has been criticized himself for being complicit in failing to prioritize workers’ welfare—succinctly described this exploitative model when he stated, “We [the Kenyan government] see Kenyans as commodities.”

Attention must be paid to the critical role of sending states in manufacturing migrant precarity. The formalization of labor export in Kenya traces back to the 1990s when the country began establishing agreements with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Over the decades, this strategy has intensified, driven by promises of remittances, which are currently Kenya’s leading source of foreign exchange, contributing 3.6% to its GDP in 2023. Moreover, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection’s new labor pacts with Middle Eastern and European countries in 2024, including Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the UK further underscore this growing dilemma.

In a stark illustration of this growing labor export trap in Kenya, Alfred Mutua, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Labour and Social Protection, recently pledged to export one million workers annually, while Kenyan migrant women currently caught in Israel’s bombing of South Lebanon, face abandonment by the very government profiting from their labor. This comes at a time when advocacy against the exploitation of African migrant laborers has gained momentum, particularly since the 2022 Qatar World Cup, when the kafala system was heavily criticized. According to sociologists, comparisons of the kafala system (which governs most Gulf countries) being akin to modern slavery are justified. Workers are legally bound to their employers for the contract duration, giving employers power and domination and inversely making workers vulnerable to exploitation. These human rights abuses as documented by migrants themselves include sexual and physical abuse, starvation, and imprisonment.

Structural factors rooted in Kenya’s political economy explain why labor exports are prominently featured in its foreign policy. The global labor market trends are divided into push and pull factors. Push factors include domestic issues that force individuals to migrate, such as poverty, ethnic conflict, and high unemployment. For example, youth unemployment in Kenya stands at 43% (ages 18–35) while 83% of the labor force operates in an informal economy characterized by low wages, lack of benefits, and job insecurity.

Pull factors, on the other hand, are opportunities available in destination countries, such as better-paying jobs, healthcare, and security. These factors particularly appeal to African women as migration offers not just financial independence but also the potential for social empowerment by providing for their families. This context helps explain the depressing reality that choice-constrained domestic workers in Lebanon were still hesitant to leave, even if offered the option, considering the better quality of life, including access to education, they were able to offer their children while employed abroad.

Advocacy against the kafala system has successfully pressured sending states to improve governance and recruitment models to protect migrants. In light of these, Kenya has made a considerable effort, on paper, to improve the regulation of labor migration in recent years, through several laws, policies and regulations. These include drafting a national labor migration policy, ratifying International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 97 and No. 143, and implementing the Employment Act (2007) and Labour Institutions [General] Regulations (2014) to oversee recruitment agencies. However, the issue is not merely that Kenya is failing to enforce its regulations effectively. Feminist scholars argue that mainstream explanations—focusing on “regulatory failures” and “limited state capacity”—oversimplify the problem. These approaches fail to address deeper systemic issues underpinning Kenya’s labor export strategy; hence, why these objectives of curbing migrant abuse are not achieved, as the recent revelations in Lebanon have shown.

Although Kenya’s regulatory framework appears to position its labor brokerage model as a tightly controlled statist regime, closer examination reveals that these regulations have, in practice, amplified the power of private actors, particularly recruitment agents. These non-state actors operate as intermediaries in a system of “governance from a distance,” where the state delegates significant responsibilities to improve management efficiency while deflecting accountability for migrant welfare. Under the Employment Act of 2007, for example, the Kenyan government explicitly empowered recruitment agencies to oversee the entire migration process, placing a legal onus on these agencies to monitor and ensure the welfare of recruits once they have settled overseas. This mandate includes critical functions such as visa applications, pre-departure training, and contract preparation, down to specifying working hours.

This unchecked power has recruitment agencies commodifying workers through commissions they receive from employers or placement agencies abroad. Under the Labour Institutions [General] Regulations of 2014, agents are permitted to charge a service fee to overseas principals (employers or placement agencies) to cover recruitment costs. However, the lack of specified maximum or minimum limits allows agents significant leeway to maximize their profits. Reports indicate that agents often receive commissions averaging around $2,000 per recruit, translating to annual profits ranging from USD19,500 to USD48,900, depending on the scale of operations. This unchecked system incentivizes agents to focus solely on profit generation. As one agent admitted, “there is money to be made” and they do not intervene when there is trouble, as their “work is done once they receive the commission.”

In addition to commissions from employers, agencies frequently violate the Labour Institutions Act by charging migrants exorbitant fees directly. Despite regulations mandating that recruitment costs be borne by employers (with the exception of one month’s salary as a deductible), migrants report paying up to $2,200 for expenses such as passports, medical certificates, and visas. Those unable to pay upfront are often subjected to wage deductions, leaving many in debt bondage for months. This intricate “web of debts and obligations” contributes to workers being treated and disposed of like commodities, which is reflected in their subordination and abuse.

Recruitment agents argue that their profits pale in comparison to the gains amassed by the Kenyan government. Official fees for documentation, such as a birth certificate, are inflated tenfold—from $3 to $30—while security bond fees, ostensibly meant to cover repatriation costs, remain inaccessible to agents and workers alike. Despite raising $3.6 million annually from licensing fees and security bonds, the government has failed to deliver on its obligations, with one insurance company monopolizing the bond system and reportedly paying not even a single claim. This results in a continuum of blame-shifting between the Kenyan government and recruitment agencies, a key reason why many workers were left stranded in Lebanon.

Rather than relying on remittances—a strategy that has proven unsustainable for long-term economic growth and detrimental to local Kenyans and the African continent at large—Kenya must prioritize the development of local employment opportunities to tackle its youth unemployment crisis. Domestic employment can foster economic growth by retaining skilled labor within the country. However, solving Kenya’s unemployment crisis requires more than job creation, it demands regulatory reform of the domestic labor market, which is plagued by significant governance gaps.

Economists often point to tourism, horticulture, and technology as untapped sectors with immense potential to drive job creation and structural transformation in Kenya. Among these, Kenya’s tech industry, branded as the “Silicon Savannah,” is marketed as a cornerstone for turning Kenya into a premier investment destination. Yet the same structural forces that drive labor migration from Kenya, including widespread underemployment, and a surplus of educated, low-wage workers, also attract tech giants to Kenya. Capitalizing on this, the Kenyan government’s foreign investment strategies frequently enable systematic worker exploitation under the guise of maintaining the country’s competitiveness in the global outsourcing market. For instance, Senator Aaron Cheruiyot recently proposed a Business Laws Amendment Bill that seeks to shield tech companies from being sued locally, a move that comes in the wake of a landmark Kenyan Court of Appeal ruling in September that allowed Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to be sued in Kenya, despite Meta claiming it bore no liability in Kenya due to its lack of local registration.

In a recent CBS documentary, moderators employed by SAMA, an American Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firm contracted by both Meta and OpenAI, detailed allegations of exploitative working conditions and human rights abuses. The workers, now pursuing a lawsuit against SAMA, report suffering from severe psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These conditions stem from their roles in content moderation, which required them to review hours of graphic and distressing material, including child pornography and suicides. Despite the psychological toll of the work, these moderators were paid a mere $2 an hour, far below the $12.50 per worker that OpenAI had reportedly agreed to pay, with no psychological support.

Cheruiyot’s conveniently timed bill shifts employee liability exclusively to BPOs, arguing this will still protect workers’ rights, asserting that workers’ rights will still be protected since tech companies would remain obligated to adhere to certain labor standards. This claim comes under heavy scrutiny, however,, as the bill could effectively shield parent companies like Meta from accountability. Without the ability to sue these tech giants locally, it remains unclear how workers can effectively seek redress for labor violations; the government’s apparent choice to weaken labor laws indirectly enables tech companies to dissociate themselves from these digital sweatshops.

Proponents of the bill argue that holding tech companies liable could hurt Kenya’s business environment and deter foreign investment, noting that SAMA, which employed over 3,000 Kenyan workers, has ceased content moderation operations following the court ruling. However, to genuinely protect workers, the government must heed the Court of Appeal ruling, holding both tech companies and BPOs accountable for labor rights violations. This includes instituting better working conditions, standardizing employment contracts, implementing livable minimum wages, and regulating work hours. To echo tech workers from Kenya Tech Workers United: “We acknowledge and support the government’s push for digital job creation. However, this responsibility does not end with job provision. No company or individual is above the law, no matter how powerful.”

Kenya’s labor export policies represent a short-sighted attempt to address unemployment by relying on migrants to alleviate the national debt through remittances. The Kenyan government must invest in domestic job creation and establish sustainable avenues for generating foreign currency. While foreign direct investment can boost domestic employment opportunities, the Kenyan government cannot hand corporations a blank check to exploit its people under the guise of economic development. Failing to do so perpetuates the neocolonial dynamics that treat Kenya’s citizens as raw commodities, ripe for colonial extraction.