By Alpha Abu
Agencies engaged in the recruitment of Sierra Leoneans wishing to seek employment abroad have been ordered by the Ministry of Labour to involve the office in every stage of the recruitment process including vetting and the signing of overseas recruitment contracts.
The latest statement from the Labour Ministry came in the wake of the government’s lifting of the ban on the recruitment of migrants by agencies believed to be operating in the country, often clandestinely.
The statement highlighted the “uncoordinated and unregistered inflow and outflow of migrants”, that it says were largely “facilitated by “non –registered underground overseas recruitment agencies”. The Labour Ministry says it is now curtailing such occurrences to “ensure safe and coordinated migration in Sierra Leone”.
The Ministry has ordered that all agencies to provide proof of approved employment certificate after it acknowledged activities in the past of “non-registered underground overseas recruitment agencies’’.
The recruitment entities usually charge fees that migrant workers pay to them and labour officials say the range of fees is yet to be “endorsed or certified by the Ministry”.
According to the authorities, immigration officers stationed at land border crossing points notably Gendema close to Liberia and Gbalamuya along the frontier with Guinea, as well as those at the Freetown International airport at Lungi, have been ordered to strictly enforce regulations set by the government. They have been instructed to ask people travelling abroad for employment to present documents bearing the approved signature of the Minister of Labour. The documents should be an overseas employment certificate, a labour clearance issued by the Labour Ministry and an approved employment contract for overseas employment.
Sierra Leone like many other Sub-Saharan countries has experienced a surge by people mostly youths seeking employment in the Middle East. The women in particular have ended up working as maids in very harsh conditions. Some have reported of inhumane treatment including torture and rape at the hands of their employers. Rights groups around the world have labelled the often shady employment of migrant workers from Africa and other third world countries by mostly unregulated recruitment agencies as human trafficking and slavery.
The International Office for Migration has in recent times repatriated thousands of stranded African migrants trying to find work in the Middle East or attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe. Many have fallen victim of organised trafficking rings or criminal gangs sometimes posing as recruitment agencies. The government in the last two years had spent huge sums of money to bring home many young women who got stranded in the Middle East and could not afford paying their way back to Sierra Leone. Many claimed to have been mistreated or raped.
Labour officials are now said to be working with SOS Global Investment of Ghana and will take full charge of the departure and return of all Sierra Leonean migrant workers. The government placed a ban on all recruitments by agencies in 2019 and only lifted it on the 21 April 2021.
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