About 65 per cent of migrants detained in Kenya hail from Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia, a report has shown.
The report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights released on Monday indicates that a third of these migrants are being detained for being in the country without proper documentation.
The study conducted by KNCHR in partnership with GIZ through the Better Migrant Management plan saw 246 migrants drawn from 55 prisons interviewed.
The interviews were also conducted in 120 police stations, 130 children facilities and five border entry and exit points including Namanga, Lungalunga, Moi International Airport, Busia and the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
In total, 501 respondents participated in the survey across the 31 counties within the month of October.
According to the study, the detained migrants often have their human rights violated as they end up being detained together with criminals serving sentences for committing a crime.
“Similarly, the legal enforcement officers illuminated unique judicial and corrective administrative challenges as pertaining the processing of migrants through unfamiliar legal systems while acknowledging these processes come at an avoidable cost to the state,” the report said.
The report said it costs the Kenyan government approximately Sh2 billion annually to process migrants through the criminal justice system and afterwards repatriate them to their countries of origin.
This cost, the report indicates, does not include processing costs for migrants who qualify for refugee status or asylum considerations.
“If the state employed other strategies such as direct repatriation of irregular migrants, provision of interim work permits for the seasonal labourers rather than processing migrants through the criminal justice system, a whooping Sh600 million is a budgeted cost ripe for saving while at the same time adopting a human-rights based response to migration governance,” the report said.
As of March 2019, the report reveals there were 530 migrants in places of detention across the 55 prisons that were were visited with the majority being in the most productive age bracket of between 22-60 years.
Some 65 per cent of the migrants are from Kenya’s direct neighbours including Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia.
While Uganda has 71 migrants, Tanzania has 43 followed by Ethiopia with 23 migrants, Somali with 20, DRC Congo with 11, Rwanda with 11 and Nigeria with nine migrants.
“The children’s facilities visited were hosting 8,831 children against the maximum capacity of 6,309 meaning that these children facilities are operating at 40 per cent above the total capacity of the institutions,” the report read in part.
According to it, one per cent of the children held in these facilities are migrants with most of them coming from Uganda, Congo, Burundi, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania.
This can be attributed to various causes that led to the migration of the children from their countries.
“Based on the sample size, the estimated total migrants in detention in Kenya is approximately 2,000, which is a two per cent of the total population in detention,” the report said.
About 60 per cent of the respondents confirmed that they had already received their sentences while 32 per cent of the migrants said they were still undergoing the trial process.
“It is worth noting is that five per cent of the respondents indicated that they had already been convicted but had not yet been sentenced. Three per cent of them had not yet been taken to court with half of the total respondents claiming to have been treated with dignity at the police stations,” the report said.
While 26 per cent failed to comment on the kind of treatment they were receiving, 19 percent indicated that they had faced cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment while at the police station with a further 7 per cent stating that they had faced extortion while at the police station.
A third of the migrants had been detained in prisons for being in the country without proper documentation while 66 per cent were detained due to other criminal charges ranging from human trafficking, drug trafficking, defilement, robbery with violence and fake passports among others.
Another 2 per cent of the migrants were detained for being outside the designated area.
The report recommends individualized case management as guided by the National Referral Mechanism Guidelines for assisting victims of human trafficking (NRM) to avoid re-victimization of victims of migration related offences such as human trafficking and human smuggling.
This will ensure that the perpetrators of such offences are the ones punished rather than the victims of the crime.
The report says there is need for training and capacity building for Judiciary, Kenya Prison Service, Kenya Police, the Department of Immigration, the Federation of Kenya Employers, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Refugee Affairs Secretariat, the department of children services among others on the standard human rights-based approach for handling and reporting on migration trends and offences.
“We recommend establishment of standardised minimum safeguards compliant with the international human rights law that protect and guide the treatment of all migrants (children and adults) in the country including irregular migrants. This is to ensure that all migrants are treated with dignity, humanity and respect and that the migrants are protected from arbitrariness and unlawfulness,” the report said.
“The state should develop alternatives to detention (ATMD) guidelines as a means of alternative dispute resolution for migrants found within the country for having violated migration laws.”
“Migrants should be given clear and concise information about the rights and duties under ATMD and the consequences of non-compliance,” it said.