Kenya

Kenya, worker rights, Solidarity Center

The Solidarity Center works with the Kenyan labor movement to boost wages, address corruption within political systems and advocate for pro-worker economic policies. Credit: Solidarity Center

The Solidarity Center works with the Kenyan labor movement to boost wages, address corruption within national and local political systems and advocate for pro-worker economic policies and shared prosperity.

The Solidarity Center’s principal partner is the Kenyan Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU-Kenya). With COTU-Kenya and its member unions, the Solidarity Center works to empower women and youth in trade unions to better enable them to advocate for their rights as union members and negotiate for improved working conditions.

Solidarity Center’s programs in Kenya include support for legal recognition of the workplace rights of domestic workers, who as workers in the informal economy, are not covered by wage laws, or job safety and health rules. Many workers, including domestic workers, migrate to other countries in search of better job opportunities, and Solidarity Center partners with unions and allies to educate workers about the risks of exploitation if they travel abroad, and to provide a broad range of assistance as they return to Kenya from jobs abroad.

Media Contact

Kate Conradt
Communications Director
(+1) 202-974 -8369

 

Decent Work Day: Focus on Living Wages

When Mwahamisi Josiah Makori, a Kenyan mother of three who worked as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, first arrived at her new employer’s house, she was given only 20 minutes before she began work. After that, she began a three-month period which involved hard...

Victory for Kenya Domestic Workers Migrating for Jobs

Kenyans going abroad to work as domestic workers will be required to have contracts, salaries and details of their work assignments before they leave, according to the (Kenya) Daily Nation. The draft policy, crafted by the Labor Ministry and the Kenya Union of...

Reaching Kenya Communities on Realities of Migrating for Jobs

In Kenya, where 2.5 million people toil in irregular, precarious jobs—compared with 900,000 in the formal sector—many workers are unable to support their families and so become targets for the labor brokers who haunt villages and cities and convince them to get jobs...
Kenya’s Jayne Njoki Helps Lead Future of Young Workers

Kenya’s Jayne Njoki Helps Lead Future of Young Workers

As a young woman working in her company’s IT department, Jayne Muthoni Njoki was frustrated by what she says were employer attempts to push her around because of her youth and sex. But rather than quit her job, which she contemplated, she ran for a leadership position...

African Unions Champion Worker Rights at AGOA Forum

African Unions Champion Worker Rights at AGOA Forum

Meeting in Togo for the annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) forum this month, nearly 20 leaders from key African trade unions joined forces to advance the creation of good jobs and safe workplaces through fair trade. The forum “is a venue for workers to...

Hundreds Join Migrant Worker Forum in Mombasa

Hundreds Join Migrant Worker Forum in Mombasa

Some 200 people from the Kisauni neighborhood in Mombasa, Kenya, took part in a forum on migrant worker rights Saturday, where those who had gone abroad for work described the harsh conditions they endured and how the labor brokers who signed them up often lied about...

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