Kenyan sues overseas job recruitment agency after being trafficked to Myanmar

The High Court has temporarily stopped a labour recruiting agency from taking Kenyans abroad for work.

The court issued the orders after one of the victims of the trafficking, Duncan Okindo, filed a case against Gratify Solution International and its officials for taking him to Myanmar under false pretences.

Two months after coming back home with nothing but the clothes on their backs and broken dreams, victims of the Myanmar human trafficking have started their journey of searching for justice.

Duncan is one of those who left Kenya in search of greener pastures, which turned into a nightmare.

In court papers, Duncan wants Gratify Solutions, Virginia Wacheke Muriithi, Boniface Owino, Ann Njeri Kihara, and other officials of the agency who are alleged to have orchestrated and facilitated his trafficking to Myanmar to be held accountable.

He alleges that he was trafficked to Myanmar by the respondents with the promise that he was going to work as part of a customer service team in Bangkok, Thailand.

Instead, he says he was smuggled by boat to Myanmar, where he was forced to work in a scam compound, performing what he termed as complex criminal activities, including cyber fraud.

"I didn’t know it was a scam city at first because walikuwa wanaficha," he said.

Duncan further alleges that Gratify Solutions engages in acts of human trafficking, modern slavery, and practices akin to slavery, in violation of human dignity.

The respondents are also accused of unlawfully recruiting unsuspecting Kenyan youth by deceitfully promising lucrative employment opportunities in Bangkok, smuggling them to Thailand for non-existent jobs on tourist visas, and then smuggling them to Myanmar by boat and handing them over to criminal syndicates where they were forcibly exploited in online fraud operations.

The High Court has granted Duncan orders that temporarily stop Gratify Solutions and its officials from recruiting, transporting, harbouring, exploiting, facilitating, or engaging in the export or deployment of Kenyan workers to foreign jurisdictions.

The case will be heard on June 12, 2025.