‘Yes, I signed the contract. Then, when I came here, I said, No, this is not what I signed. I said I didn’t know how to do the job. What I signed up for was not what I experienced, so I ran away from these employers. (Photo: Muse Mohammed / IOM) 
Sierra Leonean migrants seeking better lives abroad are increasingly caught in a web of forced labour under the guise of work programmes in the Middle East. Two-thirds of the country’s young people, who make up 74.5% of the population, have no meaningful employment, making them an easy target for fake recruitment agents and trafficking networks.
Women are particularly vulnerable, says Informal Workers Organisation Founder and CEO Chelcy Heroe. In 2020, Senegalese law enforcement cracked a human smuggling ring specialising in trafficking young women from Sierra Leone to the Middle East. The suspects were harbouring 87 Sierra Leonean women in Dakar.
Unregistered agents recruit young people and women from across Sierra Leone for exploitative employment in the Middle East. They reportedly cooperate with both smuggling and trafficking networks in transit points in west and north Africa, and in destination countries.
The agents use posters and social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to promise well-paid jobs as nannies, hairdressers, maids, teachers, shop assistants and workers in the construction and hospitality sectors. They tout Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as the new frontiers for work opportunities.
Migrants are required to pay the agents between $600 and $1,000 for recruitment fees, forged documents and travel costs – all in contravention of the International Labour Organization’s 1997 Private Employment Agencies Convention.
A 23-year-old woman who returned to the country from Lebanon told ISS Today that she had sold family possessions and land to raise funds to cover the travel costs. Other migrants stole or borrowed money, making it difficult to return home without being prosecuted or considered failures.
Over the years, fake agents have devised a “mixed” travel itinerary involving land transport to neighbouring countries before air transport to the Middle East. There are three reasons this approach is used for the difficult journey, which young people commonly call the “Temple Run”, referring to a video game where players navigate obstacles for end rewards.
First, land transport via regional hubs such as Ghana and Senegal is cheaper than flying directly from Sierra Leone. Second, travelling first to neighbouring countries enables smugglers to exploit the migrants further. Returned migrants told ISS Today: “The agents said their travel dates have been delayed and asked us to find work before our flight is confirmed.” Smugglers then broker informal jobs for the migrants and take a cut of their pay.
Migrants who can’t pay the full fee in Sierra Leone are offered a trip to a neighbouring country to do informal labour to pay for their onward journey to the Middle East. Many are forced to work in Diamniadio, a district near Dakar, where huge construction projects attract cheap labour. These migrants risk arrest in Senegal for working illegally or overstaying the number of days stipulated by the Economic Community of West African States’ free movement protocol.
Some women are forced into sex work in areas such as Senegal’s Kédougou gold mine, where they often remain captive until they escape or are no longer beneficial to the traffickers. Heroe says women also end up in forced labour and become sex slaves in transit and destination countries.
The third reason for the mixed travel itinerary is to evade the Sierra Leone government’s increasing scrutiny of illegal labour recruitment to the Middle East. A two-year moratorium on all recruitment from abroad was introduced in 2019 due to reports of exploitative treatment in the Middle East. Although the moratorium was lifted in 2021, increased security checks have prompted smugglers to detour through neighbouring countries.
Once migrants arrive in the Middle East, their passports are withheld by employers and they are forced into unpaid labour, sometimes for years. The Middle East’s kafala sponsorship system, which legally designates employers as the guardians of migrant employees, provides opportunities for exploitation.
Although Sierra Leone’s government has memorandums of understanding on safe labour recruitment with Lebanon, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, abuse of migrant workers persists. Employers work with the recruiting and smuggling networks to benefit from unpaid and forced labour.
Sierra Leone, along with the international community and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), should engage Middle Eastern countries to pass new labour regulations to protect migrant workers.
The government has initiated a return and reintegration assistance programme for migrants who have escaped from their employers or are stranded in the Middle East. In 2021 alone, Sierra Leone cooperated with the IOM to repatriate 2,112 migrants from the Middle East.
Over the past four years the IOM’s debt repayment scheme has helped returning migrants pay their debts to families and friends. It also offers therapy, skills training and interest-free loans to start businesses to help provide viable economic pathways for young people.
The government must fully implement its 2022 Anti-Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Act, which criminalises migrant smuggling for the first time. However, years of neglecting exploitative travel abroad and smuggling have fostered impunity, with many state actors implicated.
Aiah Nabieu Mokuwah, the executive director of the country’s Institute for Drug Control and Human Security, says that “despite several cases of returnees, there have been limited efforts by the government to investigate or proactively seek out the identity of the agents and smugglers who sell fictitious dreams of ‘work abroad’ to youths in communities”.
Resources must be committed to investigating and prosecuting fraudulent recruitment agencies and smugglers.
The government should also take the lead in sensitising communities to the harms of exploitative recruitment programmes, particularly in light of the “Temple Run” mindset. Building trust with the public will encourage people to report migrant smugglers and recruitment agents who infiltrate communities and use social media to lure customers. DM
Ndubuisi Christian Ani, senior researcher and project coordinator, ENACT, Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
ENACT is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Security Studies in partnership with Interpol and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
First published by ISS Today.