Report: Why Kenya should avoid costly detention of immigrants without criminal records

Image of a detained immigrant. Picture/ Courtesy KNCHR

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 30- A new report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) wants the National Police Service to form specialized units to be dealing with migrants and the human trafficking menace.

This is as the commission calls for a change of tact in the war against human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants.

Instead of punishing the victims through arbitrary arrests and detention, the report proposes a myriad of measures that if adopted, will ensure their human rights are not infringed on.

“The war and effort on human trafficking and smuggling of migrants should be directed to the cartels and traffickers benefitting from the business,” reads the report.

According to the report, Kenya spends a whooping Sh2 billion annually to process migrants through the criminal justice system and afterward repatriate them to their countries of origin.

“As long as you look on migration as a problem, as something to solve, you’re not going to get anywhere. You have to look at it as a human reality that’s as old as humankind. It’s mankind’s oldest poverty reduction strategy. As citizens, we have to find a way to manage it,” the commission pointed out while quoting International Organization for Migration Director General William Swing.

Further, the report recommends police stations which are on major entry highways to be allocated and given special kitty to cater for the cost of repatriation.

This, the report pointed out, will ensure “immediate deportation of migrants who are in the country unlawfully to reduce the financial burden on the government that is incurred through prison service.”

KNCHR also said police should expedite the trafficking cases and any other cases where children are witnesses “to enable them give evidence when their story is still fresh.”

-Report Key Findings-

According to the report that was launched on Monday, in an event attended by National Police Service spokesperson Charles Owino, Kenya has ‘silently’ adopted detention as a measure against irregular migration.

KNCHR interviewed 530 migrants who were in places of detention across 55 prison institutions, 85 percent of those being men.

According to the report, 65 percent of the respondents are from Kenya’s direct neighbours; Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

The majority of migrants interviewed at 49 percent said they had come to Kenya to look for greener pastures while 18 percent wanted to seek asylum.

Interestingly, one percent of those interviewed said they came to Kenya to get married while 9 percent others wanted to join family members while 2 percent are victims of human trafficking.

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Some 78 percent of the migrants in detention had been arrested by the Kenya police officers.

Other 10 percent said they were arrested by private citizens, 4 percent of the respondents by Directorate of Criminal Investigations detectives and immigration officers.

“The analysis of costs does not include the opportunity costs borne by the migrants. This is the human factor perspective. The impact of detention is devastating to the migrant and their families. It is hard to provide a conclusive estimate for the foregone opportunities. However, from a human rights perspective government should adopt a human-based perspective prior to detaining migrants,” reads the report.