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{
    "id": 1181286,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1181286/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 326,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murgor",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "This is a discussion that has been going on even before some of us came here. This matter was discussed in the previous Senate. This issue has become a puzzle. It is similar to that of which one came first, between the chicken or the egg because there is no end to the topic or the discussion. I am a Member and Chairperson of the Committee on Labour and Social Welfare and we had an opportunity to sit with the Cabinet Secretary (CS) on Labour and Social Protection this week. The CS is new in the office. She told us that she took notes that were left with the others and she apologized because she had no input and cannot authoritatively put a finger on the things that need to be done because she is still new in the office. In conclusion, we realised that there are contributions made by individuals that bring about the situation our children find themselves in. Some of our children sneak and go through agents that are not registered. They do this on their own unaware that they are risking their lives. Their minds are always fixated on the good fortunes that they hope will come at the end. Along with that is child trafficking that is caused by unregistered agents. When somebody goes illegally to Saudi Arabia, they begin to lose their documentation. Their passports are taken and they end up with no documents when working. When the situation worsens, they run away and become vulnerable to the police and any other situation that takes advantage of them. It was reported that a large percentage of our young people are working well and making money. We were told that they remit home large sums of money - like Sen. (Dr) Khalwale said report - and that they even contribute to their own welfare kitty while there. However, we get these reports from a few of them who end up having these problems. It is true that a few of them are indeed suffering. Since the situation there is bad, there are deaths; it must be magnified and reported because when someone is going on well and making ends meet, there is nothing to report about. However, the few alarming situations that have been reported are about death and suffering. So, the first category is the contribution made by individual girls or boys or mostly girls. The second problem is registered versus unregistered agents. It is like a game of ping pong or volleyball whereby the registered group and the unregistered group blame each other. So, our children have become victims of the blame game between the two groups of agents. Therefore, we emphasize that the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare must bring the registered agents to book as to how many they are, how many people they have sent to Saudi Arabia, how many are still there, how many have come back and what kind of jobs they do. This is because it was reported that Saudi Arabia is very large and even our Embassy is not able to cover everywhere because it is four times the size of Kenya. So, if you have an Ambassador in Riyadh, Doha or whichever major city, they cannot cover other places where our children are. The other reason was the financial situation in our embassies. It was even reported to us today in the Committee of National Security, Defense, and, Foreign Affairs that our embassies and ambassadors have no money. It was reported that one ambassador is in the"
}