Not All Roses: The Dilemma of Tanzanian Labor Migration to Saudi Arabia

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The government was all smiles announcing job opportunities in Saudi Arabia. Beaming with smiles from ear to ear, government senior officials were quick to claim a killing: 500 women nurses will be employed in Saudi and an unspecified number of other workers. The government is enthused: we are busy working for you, churning out overseas jobs.

Those successful in getting hired as nurses will have the privilege to meet on one, as early as the following January, with Her Excellence Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the president of the United Republic of Tanzania!

Like all news, euphonious news tends to have patches here and there, and few pay attention to them! History is very instructive in most cases, and in this one, it is of particular significance, and we shall elucidate on that.

Arab interaction with Africa has always been a master-slave consortium, and time has not significantly flipped that affiliation. Earlier Arabs came to Africa with goodies such as guns, ammunition, beads, dates and the like to win the hearts and minds of our traditional rulers.

In this barter trade, the slave trade was born, leading to tens of thousands of Africans being uprooted from their homelands and taken to overseas countries to work for nothing save for food, shelter and used apparel.

So, the mentality of Arabs concerning Africa has barely shifted. In their eyesight, we shall never graduate from being slaves as much as some may vilify this averment.

A curious look at how modern African workers have fared in Arab countries is littered with affirmation after affirmation that Arab countries have little regard for African lives and their welfare. If you view the YouTube channel of Kenyans in Middle Eastern countries, you will see the struggles Kenyans face at the hands of sadistic Arabs.

The first thing they usually do is confiscate your passport so that you cannot return home if you are unhappy with the occupation. So, your stay in their countries amounts to kidnapping and slavery.

Once deprived of your freedoms, then you are condemned into bondage. Cases of being overworked and having fewer hours to sleep and rest are often shared. Some employers appropriate your phone so you cannot relate to the world the evil they inflict on your poor soul.

The Arabian governments have not made any effort to glorify labour laws that will protect the rights of immigrant workers, implying they are condoning abuses of human rights. There was an African soccer player who had to beg FIFA to force a football club he was plying his trade to pay him his two-year wages because he saw no light in the Arabian tunnel.

In the leading to the 2005 elections, we were jolted by information a senior consular in Saudi Arabia Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam had raped a maid, and efforts were taken to whisk him away from the country, citing diplomatic immunity. The family of the victim was promised a paltry Tshs 8 Mill as restitution for the sexual subjugation she had suffered and endured. Some senior politicians gunning down the presidency applauded the “out-of-court settlement”, to our dismay.

Also read: Analyzing President Samia’s Stance on DP World Deal: Seizing Opportunities for Tanzania’s Development.

We are mentioning these examples to remind everyone that Arabian mentality has not changed much, and we can send our people to the gallows without knowing.

Ethiopians fleeing the tyranny back home typically seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. Still, we are blitzed with the horrific stories of the Saudi military burying landmines to deter the Ethiopians from crossing their borders. Ethiopians who step their feet on those landmines are either killed or maimed, pouring more concentrated sulphuric acid into their pain.

All Arab countries dread losing their racial identity to black Africans. It narrates why enslaved men were castrated so that they could not add more blacks to the Arab home soil. African women have always been sex objects to them, so they were not castrated but were reduced into doormats whom enslavers raped with impunity.

Ironically, while the offspring of African males were detested, children of Arab and African women were accepted, amounting to black African blood mixing with Arab blood. No wonder the proportion of black Arabs is on the ascendant. Anwar Sadat’s wife was black, but no Egyptian found that objectionable because she was regarded as an Arab. In the patrilineal Arab world, it boils down to who is your father rather than the complexion of your skin!

The gender discrimination in favour of women in Saudi Arabia’s job opportunities is unconstitutional because employment must not be segregated solely on gender basis. Our government, acting in desperation, has intentionally overlooked this issue.

But more damning is what the Saudi Arabia government is reminding us that the slave trade psyche is still much on the cards knowing during slavery, only African eunuchs were allowed to live and work in their countries.

Now, the politics have somersaulted: They cannot severe our genitals, but they can discriminate against African men so that they may not pollute their race. But Arab men can do the same to our women is just another debasement of our racial heritage.

In Kenyan YouTube telltale, we learn the other side of lucrative jobs, scholarships and other opportunities. They are grotesque baits aiming to entice us to go to their countries where they can reap our human organs. They view us as their human organs, spare parts, and nothing more.

Of telling consequences, my observations lead me to sadly conclude that there are active cells in Tanzania to abduct unsuspecting Tanzanians for this lucrative human organ trade. In a black market, for instance, the price of a liver is about $1.5 million US dollars. With such prices, it is no wonder many people have joined this heinous crime.

In Tanzania, if you are a careful observer, you will see that many spots that attract many people, like supermarkets, government offices, bus stations and the like, bad people are looking out to lure you to your death so that your human organs can be harvested, and sold for a massive return to them.

Some have been asking themselves why the human organ trade is gaining momentum. The answer to that is closer to home than you may probably guess. As the rich and famous succumb to HIV and AIDS as a result of their sexual escapades resulting in exposure to the deadly viruses, they lose their natural immunity. Without natural immunity, these lustful men are vulnerable to opportunistic diseases, which, over time, subdue their internal organs.

These old Arabs and Indians tend to be men over forty. Therefore, it is a tiny surprise that African men over forty are in perpetual danger of being abducted and murdered for their body parts that are sold on the black market. Rarely are women being kidnapped for this business.

The real reason is power inequity in human organs seekers, but even women and children are not safe. A wealthy family may have given birth to a child with immunodeficiency syndrome who needs a liver or heart transplant. Stories of school children being abducted on their way to school or heading home are growing, and few ponder the reasons behind them.

Disappearances of older men are increasing. More than not, you will hear this man was heading to work, and he never arrived or was heading home but did not make it! Older men must be on their guard.

We should stop talking to strangers, particularly beautiful women. Women are increasingly being deployed as baits to lead men to their abysmal end. At one time, women were complaining about daylight kidnappings of older men using Bajajis. One woman remarked: “…sijui wanawapeleka wapi?” Well, now you know!

Having retraced our relationship with Arab countries, we have to concede that it is not all roses as our leaders have been claiming. It could be they are unknowingly sending our people to their untimely deaths.

In Kenya, the number of workers who are shipped back in coffins with missing limbs is snowballing, and we have every reason to expect the Tanzanian cry of anguish to be imminent and foreboding. Arabian statements of defence that the dead were victims of freak accidents or incurable ailments are too coincidental to be accepted as gospel truth.