Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has urged MPs to allocate more funds to the Foreign and Diaspora Ministry to enable the government to secure legal aid for more Kenyans detained abroad.
The development comes as the minister sounded a warning to unscrupulous recruitment agencies that mislead desperate job-seeking Kenyans that their time is numbered.
The Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary (CS) said there are currently more than 1,000 Kenyans incarcerated in various countries for different offences.
However, he pointed out, many of the detainees lack access to legal representation because of budgetary constraints.
Mr Mudavadi said that Parliament has not allocated his ministry enough resources to intervene effectively by offering legal aid to most Kenyans imprisoned in different countries across the globe.
He noted that the government has come under increasing public pressure to secure legal aid for Kenyans detained abroad, even though the diaspora department lacks adequate resources to effectively tackle such cases.
“We also need to remember that as we protect Kenyans, Parliament has not given us an allocation to take over legal challenges of all Kenyans wherever they are,” said Mr Mudavadi.
“As we speak, we have over 1,000 Kenyans incarcerated in various countries for different offences,” he added.
The Prime CS observed that while the government remains committed to safeguarding the rights of its citizens abroad, he cautioned that it is not possible for any country to intervene fully in all cases facing its people.
“You can intervene occasionally in certain circumstances, but we need to know that the biggest thing is to have a process where Kenyans are aware of emerging dangers. Otherwise, we might fall into the trap of people imagining that somebody gets a traffic offence or a brawl, it becomes the responsibility of the government of Kenya,” said the CS.
“We need to remind Kenyans that once you have boarded a plane, the moment it touches the ground in whatever country, the laws that apply are not Kenyan laws but those of the country you have landed in,” he added.
Mr Mudavadi said the youth are the most affected by the arrests, saying many are uninformed about the legal risks they face abroad, hence vulnerable.
He said that with 70 percent of Kenya’s population aged 35 years and below, they are the most likely to travel outside to look for opportunities or adventure.
The former Sabatia MP said there are areas that Kenyans must be told are no-go zones because human trafficking is rampant, or they can land and become slaves, or in very extreme circumstances, some of them can even lose their body organs.
“Sometimes when you tell them not to go there, they think you are frustrating their opportunities, but in reality, you are trying to save them,” said the CS.
“We need our young people to appreciate this. This is an issue that we need to tackle, and find a way of bringing awareness, and the campaign has to be very aggressive because if we leave it loose and don’t communicate effectively, we could lose many younger people to difficult circumstances in various countries.”
On unscrupulous recruiting agencies, Mr Mudavadi said his ministry is working together with the Ministry of Labour and law enforcement agencies to prosecute the rogue agents once sufficient evidence has been gathered.
He added that the Labour Ministry and the Department of diaspora are banking on the move to help Kenyans know the credible agents.
“The issue of labour migration is still thorny, where in some instances we still have unscrupulous agents who mislead Kenyans, take away money from them only to leave them high and dry in very difficult circumstances. These unscrupulous fellows must be prosecuted so that they can stop endangering the lives of Kenyans,” he said.
Last week, Labour CS Alfred Mutua revealed the names of 32 blacklisted recruitment agencies that Kenyans should avoid while searching for overseas jobs amid increased cases of desperate job seekers falling victims to rogue agencies.
He further disclosed that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations has launched investigations into some 153 unscrupulous agencies with a view to prosecution.
A majority of the agencies have fallen on the wrong side of the law for either being in operation while not registered or with an expired licence.
