Global labour migration is as old as humanity and a key determinant of global power balance – economic, scientific and political. However, it is the current fad that African workers, both skilled and non-skilled, are crossing borders in search of better opportunities around the world.

The latest flashpoint – or is it the dumping ground – is the Middle East. Africans are becoming remodelled export commodities cast cheap labour as it used to be in the era of the horrific period of slave trade.

In June, Kenyan government demonstrated that it would rather dump the youth – Gen Z – into slavery in the Middle East rather than create quality for them in the health, education, agriculture, tourism, information technology or manufacturing sectors. To the state, the youth are a nuisance that should relocated to countries where their voices and cries cannot be heard and answered.

Elsewhere in Africa, runaway youth unemployment is the key driver to the overwhelming number of young people seeking job opportunities in the Middle East. Some youth just want to get away from the hellhole that many African countries have become to them. Desperation!

The youth just have to get there, to take up any available jobs, irrespective of skills learnt or level of education. This is where the main problem lies for African countries: brain and skills drain. They go there to indulge themselves as domestic workers, truck drivers, morgue cleaners, road sweepers, sewage cleaners, rat-catchers and other such demeaning chores. Yet, at home, they could be accountants, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, engineers, carpenters, tailors, farmers and other such noble and skilled occupations.

Some African governments – like Kenya – are taking the cue. The Kenyan president has been the principal advertising agent for potential employers in Europe, Asia, Middle East and China looking for morgue cleaners, domestic workers, construction workers, grave diggers, etc. It should not surprise anyone if commercial sex-workers lipped through the chinks and found client for their natural merchandise.

But who cares? The African worker is exploited by both their government and foreign employers. The bottom-line is employment, quality notwithstanding. African youths have been reduced to merchandise by governments that are scrambling for diaspora remittances to steady their economies instead of creating jobs at home for young people to earn salaries and pay taxes to finance national budgets.

At home, they are jobless, penny-less, hopeless and destitute. Using the latest technologies, part of this very productive population could be engaged in farming, producing food and other raw materials to grow the economy. However, this can’t be since, thanks to corruption, agriculture can’t pay and won’t pay anymore.

The farmers are no longer motivated after being sold fake fertiliser. Because of corruption again, the cartels have imported sugar and candies without paying duty. Again, hail ye corruption, they have killed the local fabric-making factory. As a result, the ginneries have gone silent and the cotton farmer has abandoned this crop; all the jobs along the value chain have gone with the wind. The only option remaining for the youth is the Middle East.

But is the money repatriated by these workers compensating for the brain drain in our African countries?

It is a rat race, and the Middle East countries are gaining at the expense of their African counterparts. Our youths are building foreign economies at the expense their own just because African presidents and their henchmen cannot break a sweat.            

In November 21, the Kenyan Senate, upon a visit to the Middle East, published a report on Labour Migration to the Middle East and its policy implications.

In the report, the Senate noted a corresponding increase in distress calls by citizens alleging torture and mistreatment, and that these menial jobs do not offer any meaningful skills transfer to support the African country. Further, the report noted that the working conditions were deteriorating. While the solar plexus that is the Middle East jobs are robbing the African countries of the labour-force necessary for economic growth, the labour migration to the Asian countries occurs without a comprehensive policy and legal framework to govern and create stability.

Over 95 per cent of African countries have not signed any agreement on labour migration with the Middle East countries.

For example, Nigeria has a laissez-faire emigration policy, which means that people have the freedom to choose whether or not to accept job offers from outside the country. This may expose them to exploitation. An International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)-Africa report on labour migration for the case of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda indicates that Nigerian workers in Saudi Arabia and Oman faced the most challenges, and were at times treated as owned slaves without repatriating or transferring any skills back home.

In Kenya, the current government is obsessed with exporting both skilled and unskilled workers. The big question is: Will the money sent back home be sufficient to compensate for the lost opportunity? In this case, economists point to a grim future for Africa.    

• A Tell report