Kenya at risk of losing talent abroad – Maraga warns
By Kenneth Mwenda, November 20, 2025Former Chief Justice David Maraga has called on the government to protect Kenyans from exploitative overseas employment schemes that risk repeating historic injustices.
In a post on X, on Thursday, November 20, 2025, Maraga compared the current trend of young Kenyans seeking work abroad to the centuries-old loss of Africa’s best talent through slavery. He warned that modern schemes, often presented as legitimate job opportunities, expose Kenyans to suffering and indignity in foreign countries.
“Our beloved Africa still lives with the unspoken wounds of losing her children to enslavement centuries ago,” Maraga said.
“Shipped across the oceans, the depletion of Africa’s best talent is a tale that seems to be repeating itself in 21st Century Kenya, only this time, through the seemingly innocuous guise of helping young people earn a living abroad.”
“We cannot, ever, in this free Africa, fall prey to that dark greed of shipping off our best across the oceans to build foreign lands on the cheap, through suffering and indignity.”
“It is against the very nature of elected governance to trade off our people as labour to foreign lands instead of expanding opportunities at home and ending the corruption that is bleeding our economy,” he said.
His warning comes amid growing concern over fake overseas jobs targeting Kenyan workers. Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Minister Musalia Mudavadi has repeatedly alerted the public to criminal networks that lure job-seekers abroad with false adverts promising high pay.
Kenyans targeted by exploitation
Mudavadi revealed that some Kenyans have been recruited under false pretences into war zones, forced labour, cybercrime, and other dangerous activities. In one case, a multi-agency raid in Athi River rescued 21 Kenyans being prepared for deployment abroad under fake job offers.
“These are worrying concerns for us, and we must be able to tell you to guard our brothers and sisters against being exploited,” Mudavadi said, noting that victims were misled into handling chemicals, assembling drones, or performing other hazardous tasks without proper training or protection.
Human trafficking for forced labour, online scams, sexual exploitation, and organ harvesting is reportedly generating billions for criminal networks, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Mudavadi urged Kenyans to use only accredited recruitment agencies and vetted intermediaries.
The New York Times exposé also detailed severe mistreatment of Kenyan workers in Saudi Arabia, including beatings, forced confinement, and deaths. Some agencies involved were linked to senior government officials, which Mudavadi later denied.
Questions have also arisen over the plight of Kenyan mothers stranded abroad with children born outside marriage.