Forestalling Eastern Africa’s Labor Bondage Crisis in the Middle East and South East Asia

Executive Summary

The escalating migrant workers’ crisis from Eastern
Africa to foreign countries calls for revitalized efforts
by state and non-state actors to avert the situation.
The crisis is worsening by the day as labor markets in Eastern Europe expand in addition to the traditional ones in Middle Eastern and Southern Asia. Key contributing factors include the widening illicit international market for labor migrants; limited public sensitization on procedures for labor immigration; weak control of human trafficking in ungoverned spaces; reintegration initiatives of migrant workers’ returnees; incoherent national and regional labor migration policies; online migrants’ misinformation and disinformation scams; and individualization of migrant workers. Therefore, there is a need to synergize national and regional anti-trafficking initiatives to ensure coherent and coordinated policy approaches to forestall labor trafficking. Key recommendations include strengthening the effectiveness of regional and country-specific anti-human trafficking policies; intensifying migrant awareness creation through local media and social gatherings and full disclosure of information contained in employment contracts before departure; strengthening stakeholders’ collaboration in labor migration policy design and implementation at regional and national levels; revitalizing government-led reintegration initiatives for migrant returnees; strengthening trans-border intelligence collaboration; employment of artificial intelligence tools to enhance real-time monitoring and combatting of human trafficking activities; and
establishment of a regional non-governmental labor migrants union.