The Association of Skilled Migrant Agencies of Kenya (ASMAK) has dismissed as fake a video shared by COTU boss Francis Atwoli showing a woman allegedly breastfeeding puppies in Saudi Arabia .
In a statement,ASMAK Secretary General Monica Mwema said the video was manipulated.
Mwema claimed the video was pulled from a pornography site, edited and shared to fuel the narrative that Kenyan migrant workers in Gulf states are being mistreated.
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Mwema further dismissed calls by Atwoli on the government to ban recruitment agencies taking Kenyan workers abroad, saying the remarks were unfortunate and careless.
“Atwoli was reacting to a non-existent, edited fake video, on national television. This is unfortunate, careless and cheap talk from a national leader,” Muema said.
At the same time,the association claims that most of the alleged cases of abuse in the Middle East reported in the Kenyan media are misleading.
“We don’t deny that there are cases of rogue agencies, rogue domestic workers and even rogue officials. But most of the cases shared on social media and carried by mainstream media are not true. We do our due diligence and have contrary evidence to what is always shared.”
“We as ASMAK always follow up on everything that happens under our watch and what we find out is totally different from what is reported,” she said further.
Atwoli suggested that the government should be involved in negotiating working terms for domestic workers.
“This is indirect slavery. I’m appealing to the new government to do what Kibaki did when Phyllis Kandie was Minister for labour. She banned employment agencies in Kenya.
