In the shadow of gleaming skyscrapers and oil-rich economies, a grim trade unfolds that echoes the darkest chapters of human history. A recent investigative report by The New York Times reveals how thousands of young Kenyan women are lured to Gulf states like Saudi Arabia with promises of domestic work, only to face brutal exploitation, physical abuse, and conditions akin to outright enslavement. Shockingly, the Kenyan government under President William Ruto not only facilitates this labor export but profits from it through family and allied businesses, turning desperate migrants into commodities. As remittances from these workers now surpass traditional exports like coffee and tea in economic value, the human cost: beatings, starvation, sexual violence, and mysterious deaths, mounts unchecked. This is not isolated to Kenya; it’s a global scourge affecting migrant workers from Africa, Asia, and beyond. Are we, in 2025, witnessing a resurgence of modern slavery, repackaged under the guise of economic opportunity? The evidence suggests a resounding yes, demanding we confront not just the chains abroad but the invisible ones binding us at home.
At the heart of this crisis lies the kafala sponsorship system, a legal framework in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE that ties migrant workers’ visas to their employers, granting the latter near-absolute control. This system, often described as “modern-day slavery,” strips workers of basic rights: they cannot change jobs, leave the country, or even report abuse without risking deportation or arrest. For Kenyan women, who form a significant portion of the 2.5 million domestic workers in Saudi Arabia alone, the reality is harrowing. The New York Times investigation uncovered cases where employers compared these women to “dogs,” withheld wages, locked them in homes, and inflicted torture that led to suicides or unexplained fatalities. One report detailed over 100 Kenyan maids dying in Saudi Arabia between 2019 and 2021 under suspicious circumstances, with families back home receiving no answers or compensation.
This extends beyond women. Men from countries like India, Pakistan, and Nepal building infrastructure in Qatar for events like the FIFA World Cup have perished in the thousands due to heatstroke, falls from unsafe heights, and exhaustion, deaths the Qatari government often attributes to “natural causes.” Globally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates 50 million people live in modern slavery as of 2021, with forced labor affecting 28 million, including 3.3 million in state-imposed systems. In the Arab states, migrant workers comprise the majority of victims, facing racism and exclusion from labor laws. Amnesty International’s 2025 report on Saudi Arabia highlights how Kenyan domestics endure 18-hour workdays, beatings, and forced isolation, amounting to forced labor. These are not anomalies; they are the system’s design, profiting elites while discarding lives.
To grasp the depth of this tragedy, we must look back. The Arab slave trade, spanning over 1,300 years from the 7th to 20th centuries, enslaved an estimated 10-18 million Africans, far outlasting and rivaling the transatlantic trade in duration and brutality. Unlike the Atlantic system, which focused on plantation labor, the Arab trade targeted women and children for concubinage and eunuchs (via castration, killing up to 90% of victims), and men for domestic or military roles, with mortality rates
exceeding 80% during marches across the Sahara. Historians argue that it was the “worst enslavement Africa experienced before Western slavery,” depopulating regions and embedding racial hierarchies that persist today. As one scholar notes, “Arabs have been enslaving people since before Muhammad” perpetuating a legacy of dehumanization.
Today, history rhymes through the kafala system, where Black African workers are racialized as disposable, echoing the trade’s contempt. In Sudan and Mauritania, slavery lingers openly, with Arabs enslaving Africans into the 21st century. This repetition isn’t coincidence; it’s neocolonialism, where economic desperation funnels the vulnerable into exploitative loops.
The dehumanization doesn’t end at borders. Globally, Black people face systemic discrimination, from the Black Lives Matter movement highlighting police brutality in the U.S. to everyday microaggressions. A stark reminder came in October 2025, when Kenyan Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon endured racist jeers during a U.S. event: “You’re from the backwoods of Kenya, get that little girl out of here,” hurled at her and her daughter, evoking the taunts faced by enslaved ancestors during the transatlantic voyage. In South Africa, apartheid’s end in 1994 promised equality, yet 30 years later, racial disparities persist: Black South Africans hold 80% of the lowest-paying jobs, face higher poverty rates (over 60%), and endure xenophobic violence against fellow Africans. As the UN notes, “Apartheid’s legacy of segregation, discrimination, and inequality runs deep,” with austerity policies exacerbating divides. These are not relics; they are active chains, rendering Black excellence, seen in global contributions from Kenyan runners to African innovators, invisible under stereotypes of inferiority.
Closer to the hearth, modern enslavement festers within African societies. In Kenya, domestic workers(househelps and shamba boys)number over 2 million, often children or impoverished adults subjected to beatings, starvation, and wages as low as $20 monthly for 12-hour days. A 2008 exposé revealed widespread mistreatment, with employers viewing them as “property,” mirroring Gulf abuses but without international scrutiny. Across Africa, child labor in mines, farms, and homes traps 92 million children, per ILO data, in cycles of poverty and violence.
This internal betrayal stems from a profound loss of Ubuntu, the African philosophy of interconnected humanity, where “I am because we are.” Colonialism and neocolonialism fractured this ethic, fostering hierarchies where the poor serve the aspiring middle class with the same cruelty once inflicted on our forebears. As one analysis laments, “The unfair treatment of African immigrants on their own continent ignores Ubuntu,” extending to servants beaten for minor infractions. How did we forsake this communal bond, trading empathy for exploitation?
We must reclaim our humanity by emulating abolitionist giants. Harriet Tubman, who led 300 enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad, poignantly reflected: “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” Her compatriot Frederick Douglass, in an 1868 letter to Tubman, praised her silent heroism: “The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism.” Douglass himself thundered against the hypocrisy: “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs,” underscoring action over passive faith.
Modern voices echo this call. Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index warns, “Life under kafala is racialized servitude,” urging reforms to dismantle exploitative visas. Human Rights Watch demands: “Governments must end the kafala system that traps workers in abuse.” In Africa, activists like those at Global Justice Kenya fight trafficking, insisting, “No one deserves to be treated as less than human.”
Just as African chiefs and kings once profited from selling kin into bondage, today’s elites, politicians, businessmen—facilitate the trade for remittances and commissions. Ruto’s administration vows to send more workers abroad despite abuse reports, prioritizing GDP over lives. This betrayal demands accountability: How did billionaires amass fortunes if not by rigging systems that impoverish the masses? Why do their children never toil in these hells?
Apologists claim, “No one forces them—it’s their choice.” This ignores the coercion of poverty engineered by corrupt governance: droughts, joblessness, and inequality push survival into subjugation. As Tubman knew, true freedom requires dismantling the structures that make chains seem voluntary. Enslavement of one is an affront to all; we emerge from the same cosmic matter, equal in intrinsic worth, regardless of wealth or status.
Modern slavery, whether in Gulf mansions, Kenyan homes, or South African townships is not inevitable; it’s a choice we can reject. Let us channel Tubman’s resolve and Ubuntu’s embrace to free our sisters and brothers, prosecuting traffickers
and reforming laws. As Douglass implored, the stars witness our heroism, will we answer? Enslavement ends when we declare: No more. We are all whole beings, bound by equality, destined for dignity. The time for action is now. Lets call out modern enslavement, silence is an act of betrayal.
Author :
Cde Odimwengu
Progressive PanAfrikan
