Gov't Ordered To Protect Kenyans Working In The Middle East

Gov’t Ordered To Protect Kenyans Working In The Middle East

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has directed state authorities to swiftly tighten enforcement of international labour contracts.

The court also ordered recruitment companies to deposit security bonds for Kenyan migrant workers in the Middle East.

The verdict, published on Friday, July 3, held the government liable for failing to protect Kenyan workers in the Middle East.

The workers were subjected to modern-day slavery, human trafficking, brutality, rape, and death, and the court concluded that the state failed to intervene.

The court said it was persuaded that migrant workers “were exposed to violations of their fundamental rights against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, torture, slavery and servitude, right to dignity and life” and had been subjected to unfair labour practices.

The High Court of Kenya declared that the Government violated the constitutional and human rights of Kenyan migrant workers in the Middle East, in a petition filed by @KituoSheria on behalf of victims of labour migration abuses.
Read the full judgment: https://t.co/Tb654eQw05 pic.twitter.com/8Akn3PuYCy— Kituo Cha Sheria (@KituoSheria) July 3, 2026

In its judgment, the court declared that victims of abuses in the Middle East “were and are entitled to effective protection by the State” against trafficking, violence, deportation and rape.

It also added that the government “failed, neglected and has abdicated” that responsibility.

Judges further ruled that the government’s failures violated citizens’ rights under the 2010 Constitution, as well as provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

As part of the remedies, the court directed the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comply with and enforce existing laws on foreign contracts of service in the Middle East.

#hotoffthebench
Employment law
ELRC has found the Kenyan State accountable for failing to protect migrant workers in the Middle East. It has also ordered the Government to strictly enforce foreign labour contracts,including requiring recruitment agencies to deposit security bonds pic.twitter.com/oaRK1QlwNJ— Joshua Malidzo Nyawa (@joshuamalidzo) July 4, 2026

This included a requirement that recruitment agents deposit a security bond.

The judgment drew on precedent from a 2013 case that arose after the government temporarily banned the migration of domestic workers to the Middle East over similar concerns.

Citing a South African Constitutional Court ruling, the court said that the advancement of human rights “is a thread that runs throughout the Constitution” and requires the government to act positively to protect citizens from abuses, even those occurring abroad.

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The ruling comes as the number of Kenyans seeking work overseas continues to climb.

There are an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Kenyans working and residing across the Middle East, with the vast majority concentrated in the Gulf States, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Government estimates indicate 310,000 Kenyans are working in Saudi Arabia alone as domestic labourers, drivers, guards and other jobs.

Rights groups and reporting by The New York Times have documented at least 274 Kenyan worker deaths in Saudi Arabia over the past five years, including 55 in a single year.

Many autopsy reports attributed the deaths to natural causes despite families describing signs of abuse.

Workers who have returned from the Gulf have described unpaid wages, confiscated passports, beatings and, in some cases, unexplained medical procedures.

They stated that the complaints were repeatedly ignored by the state to investigate or address through its embassies and labour attaches.

Gov’t Ordered To Protect Kenyans Working In The Middle East