Families of Kenyans recruited to fight for Russia in its war with Ukraine gather in Nairobi to demand answers about the fate of their relatives, some of whom have been killed or are missing
Tag Archives: Kenyans
Amnesty report exposes abuse of Kenyan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia
More than 70 Kenyan women have documented their harrowing experiences working as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, a new report by Amnesty International released on Tuesday shows.
In the report, launched in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, the rights group documents how workers were deceived by recruitment agents, denied rest days, and worked under inhumane conditions with little or no pay.
One of the women, Bigeni Maina Mwangi, told The Associated Press how she was promised a beautician job in Saudi Arabia, but she instead found herself thrust into a life of domestic servitude under exploitative conditions.
“The contract I signed in Nairobi was changed the moment I landed,” she said. “The agent said I had no choice but to work.”
Mwangi worked in Saudi Arabia for 17 months without pay. When she was finally sent home, her promised wages never came. Due to rising unemployment in Kenya, she found a better job in Dubai, but a return to Oman in 2020 led to even grimmer conditions.
“I worked in three houses non-stop, often without food,” she said.
The Amnesty report urges the Kenyan and Saudi governments to extend labor protections to domestic workers, prosecute abusive employers, and ban recruitment agencies complicit in exploitation.
Another woman, Mejuma Shaban Ali, recounted signing her contract at Kenya’s main airport before flying out in 2014. Her journey led her to what she described as “a prison.”
“I was forced to escape the house disguised as taking out trash,” Ali said. “I got to the Embassy hoping for help. Instead, I was told to find another employer because I had made no money to pay off my employer.”
She ended up working illegally after being linked to a broker, with her passport still held by her first employer.
Both women called for a crackdown on rogue recruitment agencies and stronger embassy support. “There are people suffering in Oman with no way out,” Ali warned.
The rights group estimates more than 150,000 Kenyans work as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.
“The system amounts to modern slavery,” said Amnesty Kenya Executive Director Irungu Houghton.
The Kenyan government has in recent months cracked down on exploitative recruitment agencies and promised to protect Kenyans abroad. The labor ministry in April facilitated the return of more than 100 Kenyans who were scammed by an agency and got stranded in Myanmar and Thailand.
Blind young Kenyans learn soccer skills using Soundball device
They look like any other football, but if you start kicking them around, you can’t help but notice they have a very loud adaptation.
And it’s that which is helping blind and visually-impaired people get back into the ‘beautiful game’.
These “Soundballs” are made at this workshop in Nairobi, supported by non-profit organisation Alive and Kicking.
Martin Bernard, the founder of Alive and Kicking, says it’s important the game is inclusive for everyone.
“Everybody deserves the right to play, even if you can’t see,” says Bernard.
“And I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to work out how to create a ball that when it rolled made a sound so that people who are visually impaired could actually chase around, hear the ball, and have as much fun as kids who are normally sighted.”
The handmade balls are made to a strict standard, according to Bernard.
He says they comply with six out of seven FIFA quality tests, those include rotation and bounce.
But the balls fall short on the water absorption test, he says.
“It’s a completely normal football, the same ball that we make for everybody else,” says Bernard.
“But this one has a set of six devices inside which are made of flat metal, and inside the flat metal, we have a little magic piece of metal, a ball bearing that sounds out against the sources.
“We fold that in against six of the panels, and so when the ball rotates, the ball bearings inside the metal sources make the sound.”
Paralympian Henry Wanyoike is enthusiastic about the project.
He was tipped for stardom in the Olympics, but a stroke in 1995 signalled the start of his blindness.
Since then, he’s won a string of medals in the Paralympics.
Wanyoike believes youngsters should not be locked out of playing games by their disability.
“When we are playing with this ball. And this ball is a sign of hope because it helps us not to be left behind,” he says.
“Before there were only a few sports for people with disability, but now through the innovation of such balls, we are able to bring more on board and we can now have more representation in Paralympics than what was happening before.”
In events, blind runners are tethered to a guide, but this dependence of an athlete on another person can be a serious drawback to their performance.
Wanyoike could have been excluded from the competition if he hadn’t been allowed to switch guides at the Sydney Olympics.
“We are being excluded from having like two guides, (and) because one guide can be a challenge. Like when I was in Sydney, my guide was not feeling well, so I had to get another guide and I almost lost the gold medal,” he says.
Students here at the Thika School for the Blind are already enjoying the Soundball.
Among them is 18-year-old Dennis Gitonga, who lost his sight at the tender age of 14.
Before losing his sight, he had been a competitive footballer.
He says being able to play again is helping him rekindle his love for the game.
“Involving myself in futsal – that is the adapted football – reminds me about my past and makes me feel as if I am included,” says Gitonga.
“I am still included in the normal world even though I have no ability to see, even though I read braille, so I feel included, I enjoy playing football.”
Football in schools is seldom available for visually-impaired students who also face a shortage of trained coaches.
Teachers here at the Thika School welcome the opportunity for their students to play outdoor games.
“Learners with visual impairment, they have very limited games, so if this can be added to the number of games they play, it can be a very good thing for us especially in schools,” says teacher John Kariuki Njeru.
“They like the game, it’s only that we don’t have coaches, we don’t have trainers who can help them to understand the game but when they get in the field, they enjoy the game,” he adds.
To keep costs low, Alive and Kicking uses Kenyan-sourced raw materials.
The initiative is sustained by sales of other products.
And even though economic hardship has adversely affected demand, the group’s vision has managed to stay, as its name suggests: Alive and Kicking.
Capoeira transforms lives in Nairobi’s Kibera
The beat of the atabaque drum echoes through the streets of Kibera. It’s accompanied by the twang of the berimbau and is the soundtrack to this rhythmic dance display. Here in one of Africa’s largest slums, on the outskirts of Kenyan capital Nairobi, capoeira is taking root. The Afro-Brazilian martial art that blends elements of dance, music, acrobatics and combat. Inside the circle, two bodies sway, dodge and leap with power and grace.
The mestre leads with songs, others echo in vibrant chants and melodies. “The roots of capoeira come from Angola and Congo and it was established by the enslaved Africans who were brought from that region of central west Africa to Brazil,” explains Salim Rollins, the founder of Capoeira Angola Centre in Kibera. “It was a form of resistance of using martial forms that are from Africa as a form of resistance to the institution of slavery and the oppression that these different ethnic groups experienced.” Rollins, popularly known by his students as Mestre Salim, founded Capoeira Angola Centre in this area of Nairobi where he trains local children and adults.
Nasri Babu, a 25-year-old capoeirista, started learning in 2019. He says it’s a good way to manage the stresses in his life. “From the community I come from, there is a lot going on and capoeira has always played a big part like a therapy thing, it has always been like a therapy to me,” he says. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazilian authorities outlawed capoeira as it became associated with vagrancy and street gangs. In the 1930s, capoeira was developed into a structured system, called Capoeira Regional, which incorporated traditional movements with new techniques and emphasized self-defence, helping to legitimize Capoeira as a respected martial art.
“It has also helped me with self awareness, self discipline and it has also helped with self defence,” says Beckham Otieno, an 18-year-old capoeirista. “When somebody attacks me, I know how to use the capoeira moves. I can’t be damaged because capoeira helps me with those skills and I apply them in the streets,” In 2014, UNESCO declared Capoeira Circle an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, acknowledging its significance as a symbol of resistance, identity, cultural expression and unity.
“There’s also a ritual element that’s really important within capoeira,” adds Rollins. “You see, we practice in a circle, and you see there’s call-and-response songs. So, that’s the idea of creating an energy within that circle and also sort of feeding and contributing to the two practitioners.” Movement and discipline, being embraced by a new generation of Kenyans.
Kenyans welcome suspension of police mission to Haiti after violence escalates
Kenyans on Wednesday welcomed a government decision to halt plans to deploy at least 1,000 police officers to Haiti following the unprecedented violence that erupted in the Caribbean nation.
Kenya had agreed last October to lead a U.N.-authorized international police force to Haiti, but the country’s top court in January ruled this was unconstitutional, in part because of a lack of reciprocal agreements on such deployments between the two countries.
Nairobi resident Lameck Ochieng said he was not surprised by the court ruling. “Our children who were going to be killed outside (in Haiti) now are safe” he said.
“As a Kenyan, this is the situation which we saw before, even the courts ruled against it (deployment of Kenyan police to Haiti). But the outcome has not that much maybe scared me because we knew that it was something which was not going to be achieved”
Kenya’s President William Ruto said that he and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry had witnessed the signing of the reciprocal agreements between Kenya and Haiti on March 1, clearing the path for the deployment.
“Haiti has no government, it has no structure so it’s not advisable, you know. Let’s say like, if our government really cares for our people, they wouldn’t even consider doing that (deploying Kenyan Police to Haiti)” said Rose Wanjiku, a student.
Under the plan, the U.N.-backed multi-national police led by Kenyan officers was to help quell gang violence that has long plagued Haiti.
But violence escalated sharply since Feb. 29, with gunmen burning police stations, closing the main international airports and raiding the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
Kenyans: Stop Burning Witches, Witchcraft is Superstition
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW) urges the people of Kenya to stop lynching persons suspected to be witches because witchcraft allegations are mistaken assumptions.
The call has become necessary following reports of the brutal murder of elderly women accused of witchcraft in the country since August. Kenyan advocates drew the attention of AFAW to a particular video that was circulating on social media. One advocate who shared the video also said: “Very disgusting this is! And the people that do this will not know peace. Witchcraft only exists in people’s minds. I’ve never believed in it. How do you even tell that a person is a witch if you’re not or you’ve never been one yourself?” The video contains revulsive scenes where an alleged witch, a woman in her 70s, was pleading for her life. She had been beaten and had bruises on her face. The mob put a tyre on her neck, covered her with dry leaves, and then set her ablaze while members of the public watched and cheered.
Many Kenyans have been commenting on the incident and pervasiveness of witch persecution and killing in the country. Njeri Wa Migwi-Mwangi posted this comment:”The first time I saw a video on Whatsapp of an elderly woman being burnt, she was in a ditch, she was bleeding and crying and begging them but they beat her anyway and they burnt her. I remember I broke down and cried and cried. They said she had red eyes so she was a witch and deserved to die. No one was arrested. That was 2016. On 28th October, an elderly woman was burnt in and the same allegation was made: she was a witch. That a child had died from flu in the neighborhood. My god, no one had a mask, no one. No one was arrested. I’ve checked and it’s a habitual thing to kill elderly women in Kisiiland under the guise that they’re witches. Most of these women are also widows. Is this a case of land grabbing? Where is the outrage? Is it a crime to be elderly? Why are you killing old women? Why is no one talking about this! Thousands of posters advertising the services of witch doctors are in this city, with their numbers but somehow the ones in Kisii are the effective ones! Stop killing old women”.
In the same vein someone said: “I watched that clip, I couldn’t stand it. A chilling fear ran down my spine. Fear of the young men and women we are raising, who will commit murder in broad daylight, and will be applauded. This has been, will always be, murder. When people want to disinherit widows, they first accuse them of killing their husbands or being a witch’. My heart bleeds for our society”.
Another Facebook user commented: “I hated when I saw one of the guys slapping our old mum, I couldn’t do the whole video when she caught fire, I missed mum who died a natural death(I was there seeing someone’s mum burning away. It’s painful, I wish we could do away with this kind of act”
Usikimye, a local organization that campaigns against gender-based violence said this on its Facebook page: “Gender violence comes in many ways and one of the many ways is the killing of the elderly especially women under the guise of witchcraft. There was a heartbreaking video doing rounds of an old woman being beaten by a mob, and eventually, she was set on fire. On 28th October, the same fate befell another old woman and the mob burnt her, they claimed that she had bewitched a child that died. This is a practice in Kisii and seems like parts of the coastal province are also on it.
We cannot in good conscience continue to be silent when the elderly are burnt. This could be an issue of disinheriting widows or grabbing land. Stop killing elderly women”.
In addition to comments on social media, a report in the Nation summarizes what transpired in Kiisi. A mob attacked the woman after she allegedly dropped “some leaves considered as witchcraft paraphernalia at the home of her stepson”. The stepson had lost three children in ‘mysterious circumstances’. The expression, ‘mysterious circumstances’ usually refers to situations that defy commonsense and everyday explanations. This elderly woman was suspected to be responsible for the death of the children. According to the report, the woman confessed to being behind the death when she was confronted. She claimed to have killed the children along with two other persons. The mob descended on the woman and lynched her. As the report noted, the father of the children wondered what the woman was doing at their house very early in the morning.
When families suffer many deaths within a short period, members become paranoid and sometimes think that some persons might be using harmful magic against them. Elderly women are often suspected and scapegoated. The belief is that elderly persons use magical means to extend their lives, and achieve longevity. Elderly persons kill children and younger persons to exchange their young souls with their elderly ones. Thus the young persons die pre-maturely while the elderly continue to live.
AFAW implores all Kenyans to discard this baseless assumption and superstitious nonsense. The people of Kenya should understand that there is no evidence for witchcraft explanations of death, diseases, and other misfortunes. Kenyans should stop attacking and burning elderly women for witchcraft because these women are innocent and have no hand in deaths and other misfortunes in families. Witchcraft allegations are informed by ignorance, fear, and anxiety over existential challenges and uncertainties. Elderly women need care, love, and protection because in some cases they suffer from dementia and other old age-related ailments that predispose them to make confessions and utterances that could easily be attributed to witchcraft. The people of Kenya should abandon the superstitious belief in witchcraft and embrace science and critical thinking.
In response to the recent development, AFAW has started a local Whatsapp group for advocates in Kenya who are discussing various ways to tackle the problem of witch persecution. Some have proposed to organize public education campaigns in the communities. Others have proposed to set up shelters for victims in the affected regions. It is encouraging to know that there are Kenyans who do not believe in witchcraft and who are willing to take measures to address this menace. For instance, one of the advocates posted the following on the platform:
It’s sad to see how very innocent human beings are killed in a very vindictive and savagery manner in the name of witchcraft. I don’t believe that there exists such a thing as witchcraft. I come from Nyamira County in Kenya where very many elderly people and surprisingly many of them are old women are killed for allegations of witchcraft.
The latest case captured the attention of many because it was caught on camera but many such cases end up unreported. So what’s the relationship between witchcraft and age? How can a person be very good throughout life only to become a witch at an advanced age? I have not seen a young person being accused of it. Why the elderly? This allegation has been used to eliminate people for various reasons but coming from a region this happens I’ll tell you one reason. That the elderly people are being eliminated because such things as land and other things that can be inherited, and also their age have made them a burden to their families. You’ll be surprised that families play a key role in this persecution of their elderly ones. And the reason why the perpetrators of these satanic acts don’t face justice is that the society is first mobilized against alleged witches and because the belief that somebody can be a witch is still deeply rooted. The victims are eliminated through mob justice and that makes it difficult for people to testify against the perpetrators because many people in the village are involved and we’re not a country that protects witnesses who could give information about what happened”.
While the views and perspectives of Kenyans who do not believe in witchcraft constitute a sign of hope, to root out witch burning, Kenya needs a critical mass of advocates against witchcraft allegations and witch burning. All Kenyans need to embrace AFAW’s decade of activism and work to end witch persecution in the country by 2030