Labour Migration In East Africa

Migration is East Africa is mainly driven by factors such as civil and political strife, natural disaster like drought and cross border movement between groups of people who were separated by colonial demarcation to the continent. Countries in the East African region are believed to have low levels of migration compared to other regions on the continent. Currently, the number of migrants from Eastern Africa is estimated to be fewer than 7 million worldwide out of the region’s estimated total population of around 315 million (Martin and Bonfanti 2015). This represents 2.2% of the region’s total population, well below the world average migration rate of 3.3% (Martin and Bonfanti 2015). Furthermore of this figure, more than two thirds are said

Movement of labour migrants within the region were driven by colonial policies like other regions in the Africa. According to Black et al. (2006) colonial labour laws were said to have enforced patterns of circulatory migration with areas divided into production and reproduction. Many African families within the sub-region were moved into labour reserves, from which men were recruited to work in cities and on plantations (Black et al. 2006). The rest of the family lived in the reserves subsisting on crops grown within the area; cash remittances from the active family members working in the colonial economy thus became very important for family upkeep. Labour migrants within the region have been attracted by work in plantation such as cotton and coffee areas in Uganda and Kenya, mines in Uganda and D.R Congo and also through seasonal pastoral activities in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya (Musonda 2006). Whereas some of these movements of labour were voluntary, others were not. In the colonial era, labour migrants were sourced from countries such as Rwanda, Burundi and D.R Congo to countries like Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. These migrants were forced to work on railway projects in Kenya and sisal estates and

This form of population movement has been replaced by refugee movement due to the region political instability especially in countries such as Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Eritrea. Nevertheless, countries which were recipient of labour migrants such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have been major recipient of the refugees flee the political conflicts and civil strife in the war torn countries. The economically developed countries in the region – Kenya and Tanzania – have been relatively the region’s most peaceful countries. Whereas, these countries have been destination of refugees and economic migrants in the region, they have also served as transit countries for migrants moving to Southern Africa. Additionally, the East African region has quite a prevalent xenophobia about labour movement in the region. This xenophobic prevalence has often resulted in the removal of labour migrants from receiving countries in the region for very scanty excuses; similarly, these migrants are often accused of many of the ills of the countries such as increased criminalities (Musonda