Introduction

Throughout this blog we have adopted a systematic approach to describing and reflecting upon the processes and elements that formed Community Stories of Modern Slavery in Migori County, Kenya – a Phase 2 project of the Antislavery Knowledge Network Programme funded by AHRC & GCRF. Phase 2 projects were encouraged to investigate modern slavery as a development challenge, through the appropriation of participatory arts-based strategies rooted in heritage and memory.

The Community Stories project originated when the PI raised the Phase 2 call for proposals at a collaborative community radio network meeting facilitated by Community Media 4 Kenya (CM4K). CM4K has been bringing students and staff from Rongo University, the University of Brighton, and the community of Cham gi Wadu, together using a communication for development approach (Manyozo, 2012) for almost 10 years. CM4K’s mission is to build community capacity, create platforms for community voices and find solutions to community needs using community media for social change techniques.

The collaborators collectively considered how community media might be appropriated to investigate and raise awareness of modern slavery. It was during these dialogic exchanges, that the 2 main phases of the research design emerged: 1) an action learning approach to capacity building through community media-based participatory research (CMBPR); and 2) the use of community media practices to collect stories of modern slavery from the community.

We were tasked with a) investigating modern slavery as a development challenge; and b) utilising a participatory arts-based research approach grounded in heritage and memory. In order to achieve this, the team resolved to represent the experiences of victims/survivors and stakeholder of modern slavery, using their own voices, through a story-based approach. It was this that guided the design processes, in which we needed to reflect the symbiotic relationship between the project as a research investigation, and the project as a development challenge.

The intention of the project collaborators was for the project’s findings to be presented by community voices. For this reason, with the exception of the academic team’s summarisation of the findings, the bulk of the project’s findings are presented, using a range of community media formats, in a manner that employs the actual voices of the community.

Aims & objectives

Having contextualised the project’s origins, it is perhaps useful to remind ourselves what the investigation set out to achieve before we start to reflect on how successful we were in achieving it.

Project aim

• To use community media tools and practices to co-produce, document, and archive survivor stories about modern slavery in Migori County, Kenya in order to build public awareness and influence policy development for change to combat modern slavery.

Project objectives

1. Conduct community-based participatory research mentoring and media practice training for students and community members
2. Co-produce, record, analyse and archive community stories from survivors of child labour and child marriage for use by the Antislavery Knowledge Network, local radio stations and policy makers
3. Establish effective community based anti-slavery groups
4. Publish, disseminate, and archive research findings for the Antislavery Knowledge Network
5. Evaluate the impact of the project.

Project phases

Achievement of the project aim is witnessed across the pages of the blog. At the time of writing, as the current funded project comes to its conclusion, there are 45 community media artefacts. Presented in video and audio form, they are stories produced by the team and community participants together. These community media stories accompany the extensive written narratives that explain, describe, and provide theoretical justification for each phase of the research cycle. The number of artefacts is likely to increase over time, as the project is carried forward by the CM4K partnership. In addition to the video and audio stories, most pages contain images shot by participants throughout the project. We have attempted to bring these together through the creation of image galleries of the project activities. In addition to the link here, the galleries can be found in the drop-down menu of the project findings.

Before making concluding comments in respect to the 2 main phases of the project, outlined in objectives 1 and 2, we take this opportunity to make observations in respect of objectives 3-5. As explained in the postscript to our conclusion, as well as elsewhere, the COVID19 pandemic had significant effects on the project – affecting the project timeline; and detrimentally impacting on outcomes and outputs. It also changed what the project partners were able to contribute and stopped the Principal Investigator from travelling to Kenya. The Co-Investigators did their best to communicate effectively but network communications in remote rural areas of Kenya can be challenging, especially when the rains come. Being located by Lake Victoria, the rains come frequently in Migori County, and the electricity grids shutdown for hours at a time, daily. A consequence of these blackouts is the instability of mobile telecommunication networks, e.g., Safari.com. At this point research meetings become problematic if not impossible.

research objectives 3-5

Objective 3 stated that community based anti-slavery groups would be established during the project. We were not as successful with this as we would have liked to have been. The pandemic prevented us from visiting many of the communities identified, through the assistance of Migori County Children’s Services, as child labour and early marriage ‘hotspots’. This prevented the establishment of groups in these areas. That said, every setback presents the potential for another opportunity, and it was then, as our thoughts turned to what might be done, that we realised that we already had the basis for such groups within the CM4K network.

The Community Health Workers (CHWs) already deal with many issues relating to modern slavery – see Community Documentary (Part 2). Upon discussions with them, we agreed that we would find ways to collaborate with them to establish these antislavery support groups (ASGs). This will form part of our future CMBPR endeavours, as will the establishment of extra-curricular antislavery clubs at the community schools we are working with. Ongoing dialogue with schools reveals a willingness to include modern slavery into the curriculum, perhaps as part of the new competency-based curriculum being introduced.

Although we couldn’t establish the groups as outlined in our original proposal, the agreements being reached with schools and CHWs accompany the success we achieved in assisting Cham gi wadu 4 Pamoja to establish itself as a bona fide community-based organisation (CBO) under Kenyan law. The CBO is an amazing outcome from the capacity and capability building activities of this project. It enables them to raise funds in order continue to work, within the Cham gi wadu community network (Day & Farrenden, 2007), on raising awareness of modern slavery through the use of community media tools, practices, and processes.

Objective 4 dealt with the dissemination and archiving of research findings for the Antislavery Knowledge Network. This has been achieved successfully by: 1) facilitating dialogue and awareness raising throughout the community network; 2) development of this blog, where all outcomes are recorded and outputs archived; and 3) the forthcoming airing on local radio of the radio content produced with the intention of raising awareness and dialogue among the broader radio listening public (local radio is the most effective public communications platform in Migori County, especially in the more rural communities). We were less successful in dissemination through academic publication. The project was presented by 3 of the team at the 2020 Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA) conference but the time constraints imposed on the time available, during the pandemic restricted academic publications. That said, there is much data and materials in this blog that will be processed into academic writing for publication in various future publications. These will be linked to this blog also.

Objective 5 focussed on the evaluation of the impact of the project. As a community-based participatory project, the outcomes for evaluation were designed as a community exhibition in which participants and stakeholders would be invited to attend. We had planned for songs, dancing, performed sketches, poems to be presented by school arts-based clubs and folk performers – all performing materials relating to modern slavery. This was to be followed by a participatory evaluation workshop in which participants and stakeholders evaluated processes and impacts of the project and discussed future plans. Unfortunately, this was put on hold due to lockdown and social distancing measures caused by the pandemic. The health and welfare of all participants and stakeholders in this project has been paramount throughout the research cycle.

Objective 1 – Capacity building

• Conduct community-based participatory research mentoring and media practice training for students and community members

Treating a research investigation as both a development challenge and a participatory project requires careful and inclusive planning, design, and implementation. We have shown through the theoretical contextualisation and discussion of our methodological approach, i.e., Community Media-Based Participatory Research (CMBPR), that for community participants to be enabled as both community researchers and community media practitioners requires significant attention to be paid to their training.

We achieved this by adopting an action learning approach throughout. This started during the community conversations, where participants engaged in dialogue with a range of community groups and citizens to discuss the concept of modern slavery and its relevance to communities in the area. In this way they started to develop an understanding of the topic under investigation, the perceptions and experiences of others and started to refine their own worldview.

We built on the approach during the Participatory Learning Workshops (PLWs) in which participants learnt about the purpose of research; the difference between traditional academic research and community-based participatory research; the importance of ethics in the research process; how to engage in dialogue as a means of data collection; how to analyse the results collectively; disseminate and evaluate the processes. During these processes, even when applied to the use of community media tools, participants were learning – community and academics alike. We were all going through knowledge-based transformations. This is what Mezirow describes as transformative learning but in the design and implementation of the Community Stories project, it was applied to community-based participatory research using community media tools and practices through community development processes.

Transformative learning is learning that transforms problematic frames of reference—sets of fixed assumptions and expectations (habits of mind, meaning, perspectives, mindsets)—to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change. (Mezirow, 2003)

For us the challenge of the AKN Phase 2 call for proposals was two-fold. Firstly, we saw the research as a development challenge in terms of the need to build both capacity and capability within the community so that they could affect meaningful social change. It was noticeable that on at least 2 different occasions during the training activities, participants were heard to comment,

We are the media!

and

We are researchers now! I never expected that.

The first comment was made during a contribution to a discussion, during the community conversations, about how community radio would help them share information and knowledge to improve the lives of community members. The second was during a feedback session evaluating the PLWs. The capability building component was more subtle and nuanced but visible for all that. Participants started these sessions as a group of individuals, who admittedly had the best interests of the community at heart, but were mostly individuals, nonetheless. As time moved on and their engagement with each other grew, so too did the bonds of trust, mutual respect, and friendship. In engaging with people, some of whom are strangers, in communicative processes about sensitive topics, such as modern slavery, we open ourselves up to them. When facilitated properly, this openness encourages honest exchanges and stimulates transformative learning.

It became clear, as the project processes evolved, that a sense of community cohesion was evolving also. This was particularly noticeable across generations and gender. Intergenerational discussions evidenced much in the way of an emerging mutual understanding through reciprocal knowledge exchange. Intergender communications became respectful and showed much in the way of expressing similarities and differences of perceptions and presented learning opportunities.

Of course, this is a generalised summary of what we witnessed and there may have been incidences where things were not always quite so harmonious but overall, what we witnessed during these sessions, was a growing cohesion within the groups in ways that were capable of discussion changing attitudes to culture and identity. This was especially true where cultural activities, such as marriage and domestic relationships, FGM, child labour, human trafficking, and early marriage, were discussed. Our Co-Investigators Jerry and Isabel, different generations, and genders, noticed a sense of an emerging cultural identity emerging through people being given the opportunity to speak and to listen to others, as if their voices mattered. Which, of course, they do!

Interest and enthusiasm developed with the introduction of the hands-on use of media technologies in the workshops, especially among the younger participants but not only them. The use of cameras for photography and videography; the use of audio recorders and editing software to produce content for radio; and mobile phones for communication networking to maintain a network of contacts were enthusiastically received.

As time moved on community participants became more confident in themselves. They began to acquire and display patterns of participatory behaviour, together with a control and sense of value and worth that might help them to work together in their communities, in their local businesses, where trade and information/knowledge sharing is crucial to improving the quality a family and community life. That one of the outcomes of this project has been the registration of Cham gi wadu 4 Pamoja (Share/dine with your neighbour all together) is testament to the success of the project and it CMBPR approach as a development challenge.

Objective 2 – Story elicitation

• Co-produce, record, analyse and archive community stories from survivors of child labour and child marriage for use by the Antislavery Knowledge Network, local radio stations and policy makers

It is not our intention here to retrace the data provided by the community stories. This is covered in the Findings – Voices from the Communities sections. Instead, we will bring the funded part of this AKN Phase 2 project to its conclusion through a discussion of 4 points that we feel speak to the 2nd development challenge (the 1st refers to capacity/capability building). In this instance, the development challenge refers to changing community attitudes, perceptions, and actions as they relate to modern slavery. In order to do this, we present a community typology of modern slavery in Migori County through their eyes; we summarise briefly the causes of these types of modern slavery; we consider how they might be prevented before finishing with a brief discussion of our recommendations.

Community Typology

Modern slavery is defined and treated in many ways. We provided definitions earlier in the blog together with an explanation of our treatment of modern slavery as a development challenge. More often than not research investigations, together with the attention of antislavery campaigners and policies, tend to be directed at the macro and meso levels of society, that is to say international, national, and regional aspects of modern slavery. In our stories we have switched the focus to the micro level. In other words, what does modern slavery looks like at community level; what causes it; how does it impact on families and individuals and what can be done to combat it?

During the project our community participants always discussed modern slavery in terms of exploitation. Indeed, they identified 4 forms of exploitation relevant to the discourse in their communities together with 5 types of modern slavery of concern to them at the community level. We discuss this typology in our Summary of Findings but the 4 forms of exploitation together with the types of modern slavery are listed here for convenience in contextualising the 3 remaining points that follow.

Forms of exploitation

1. The exploitation of subsistence farmers, labourers and the landless.
2. Exploitation by large landowners – foreigners, outsiders, or wealthy locals – Locally known as Slave Masters.
3. Social and economic exploitation.
4. The exploitation of women and children – the latter often occurs behind the closed doors of family life as well as through the other 3 forms.

Types of modern slavery

• early marriage
• child labour
• female genital mutilation
• landlessness
• human trafficking.

This in no way should be taken to mean that anyone is suggesting the above typology as an exhaustive list. It is simply a contextualisation of the focus of our participants during their deliberations and storytelling/sharing.

Causes & Correlations

The most frequently cited cause of modern slavery, from nearly all participants, was poverty. The arguments given were so compelling that we are convinced that poverty is responsible for modern slavery in many, if not most, instances. It is important to note however, that poverty doesn’t always cause modern slavery and that different types of modern slavery can lead to, or cause, poverty.

What do we mean by poverty and what did our participants mean when they used the term? Did they all mean the same thing? Poverty is a complex concept to define. We suspect that at first thought, our participants meant income or consumption poverty. Chambers, from the Institute of Development Studies, describes this as the most common of definitions found among development professionals. He identifies several other clusters of definitions, including material lack or want, which as well as income, includes a lack of access to assets; another cluster revolves around the Amartya Sen – deprivation of capability approach; whilst another adopts a more multi-dimensional deprivation approach. Chambers contests that all these definitional clusters are made by “us”, and by us he means development professionals. He poses the question,

Whose reality counts? Ours? Or theirs? Or more precisely: ours, as we construct it with our mindsets and for our purposes? Or theirs as we enable them to analyse and express it?   (Chambers, 2006).

As if to reinforce the validity of these questions, we need to confess at this point, that we did not ask of participants what they meant by their use of the word, ‘poverty’. We all assumed that we knew what was meant. To compound this error on our part, we now use another definition of poverty. Not because we think it is 100% correct, or because we align with the religious sentiment behind it, but because it illustrates the multi-dimensional and complex nature of poverty, and acts as a vehicle for contextualising the development challenges facing any campaign to ameliorate modern slavery at the micro level by understanding its relationship to poverty.

A proper definition of poverty must address the many different types of poverty and acknowledge that poverty is hunger and lack of shelter, illiteracy and not having access to school, being sick and unable to see a doctor, fearing for the future, living one day at a time and feeling completely powerless and trapped by things beyond one’s control. (Compassion International, 2021).

As outlined above, alongside poverty, our participants referenced exploitation, as a major cause of modern slavery. Casual labour is rife throughout the region and many commercial organisations, land, and property owners exploit those powerless to sustain their families in any other way. Attention must be drawn to the fact that not all who employ casual labour are wealthy land and property owners, nor are they all commercial organisations. The sad truth is that casual labour has become normalised in a region dependent on agriculture and fish to sustain the population. It is also a sad truth that casual labour is linked to the ownership of land which still displays vestiges of colonial rule; the incompatibility of many post-colonial land laws; corruption; land grabbing; and discriminatory land inheritance practices.

We’ve outlined throughout that agriculture plays a key factor in the ability of families to feed themselves. Many live at subsistence levels, ebbing in and out of an ability to put food on the table. We encountered many, either on camera or away from it, who told us that their family goes to sleep hungry on many occasions. This leads to children engaging in casual labour in order to survive and is a root cause of child labour. Because child labour is cheap, there are many happy to exploit children – paying them less, or not at all, for work they have undertaken. A fairer distribution of land, so that people can grow their food, is something the Kenyan government could address but is failing to do. In this respect the lack of appropriate government intervention enables exploiters to flourish and prosper.

Sadly, there is a correlation between government funding of education and child labour, in what is now meant to be a compulsory and free education system at primary and secondary levels. It has become abundantly clear, that the government, who are responsible for the supply of teachers in schools, is not providing enough funding to meet the educational needs of children from rural communities. This has resulted in school fees, being levied by the Boards of Governors of Schools. The fees are for all children, regardless of their ability to pay, and children are sent home if the fees are not paid. This forces children, from poor families, to find work in order to pay them. The education system is neither free nor universal and contributes directly to modern slavery at the micro level through child labour.

Another contributory factor to modern slavery facilitated by levels of inadequate government interventions, unresponsive administrative action, and poor policing, is the lack of enforcement. We encountered many instances where citizens suggested that backhanders, bribery, and other forms of corruption, often result in perpetrators of modern slavery not being charged, released after arrest, and/or being advised to ‘find a solution’ to avoid prosecution. In rural areas such solutions often take the form of payments, often in cows, to the parents of victims of slavery, whilst the victims themselves receive nothing in the way of support, not even justice!

Such practices highlight how children, are often viewed as the property of parents, usually men. This encourages modern day slavery practices by normalising them. The human rights of those living in poverty, especially children and women, are being abused regularly, and rather than the laws of the land being enforced, the abusers and exploiters are enabled to escape their responsibilities and justice. It needs to be understood that exploitation that leads to modern slavery is a criminal activity, and against the law. There is no excuse for non-enforcement of the law. Until abusers and exploiters understand the consequences of their actions, modern slavery will continue to evolve and flourish at the micro level.

We have seen how cultural practices such as wife and land inheritance often have a correlating relationship to modern slavery. For example, FGM frequently leads to early marriage and underage pregnancies. Polygamous marriages often create family disputes, domestic violence that often leads to loss of land and property rights, when a spouse escapes such situations. This commonly results in child labour, early marriage and further exploitation and poverty – illustrating the vicious circle between poverty and modern slavery. Whether the relationships between the issues we discuss is causal or correlational, is irrelevant to those enduring exploitation and modern slavery. The simple truth is that both relationships cause misery, pain and abject suffering as the stories shared here illustrate.

We conclude this discussion of causes by raising what many participants call ignorance. The term was used in a number of instances in respect of agricultural practices. The arguments here were applied to the use of community radio in order to share information and knowledge that benefits the community by improving food security through improved farming techniques. This in turn reduces the need for child labour. However, ignorance was also used in respect to modern slavery. Participants suggested that many people displayed a lack of awareness about the impacts of forms of modern slavery such as early marriage and trafficking. Here again, community radio was suggested as the most appropriate vehicle for discussing modern slavery and sharing such stories.

Prevention

Throughout the pages of this blog, we have attempted to reflect the views of communities in South Kanyajuok Sub-Location. Many feel neglected and let down by politicians and administrators. It is not enough simply to have anti-slavery verbiage written into the constitution and legislative statutes. Signing up to UN programmes and targets such as SDG 8.7, whilst laudable, is no good if actions do not accompany the words.

As we have seen from the stories shared with us throughout this project, there is an urgent need for action to prevent exploitation of the vulnerable in the form of modern slavery. There is also a need for action to be enforced when those found guilty of the misery and suffering caused by modern slavery are identified. Permitting perpetrators to walk free punishes the victims and contributes to the normalisation of modern slavery at the micro level. Creating and laws that are just in word and deed requires both commitment to justice and resistance and enmity to corruption from those in positions of political, legislative, and administrative power. It also exigent that the reasons for exploitation and modern slavery – together with the reasons why the criminal actions connected to them are regularly not being enforced – to be understood and addressed.

Prevention, however, is not solely the responsibility of those in positions of power. Communities at large also have roles to play, if the negative and detrimental effects of modern slavery are to be ameliorated and eradicated. This requires dialogue, active listening and respect for all voices and viewpoints within the composite units of the community networks:  individuals, families, schools, faith organisations, community groups/organisations – including youth and women’s groups, etc. To achieve this will require an inclusive campaign of public awareness raising; community research and community planning with a commitment from those in positions of authority to listen, respond and enact.

It is clear to us that many in positions of public power do not understand modern slavery as a micro level danger or if they do understand, they either cannot or will not, act against it effectively. Our community participants proposed ignorance, i.e., a lack of knowledge, as the reason for this. Addressing such ignorance across the different layers of social structure will require widespread campaigns of awareness raising and knowledge sharing. However, some fail to act on what they know because they, either don’t care enough or, they benefit from modern slavery in some way or another. Those who cannot act, either don’t have enough resources to enable them to address matters effectively, or it is beyond their powers and those who do, simply fail to act, or enable action.

Recommendations

Research that informs policy

It is patently clear to us, from our conversations with community members and dialogue with individuals, that people believe political representatives and public administrators, at all levels, are out of touch with community needs and aspirations. Understanding the reasons for their lack of action in preventing modern slavery at the micro level, or taking enforcement action against perpetrators, necessitates research that creates knowledge and understanding to inform policy and action. We propose that the powers that be, and funders, could do worse than adopting a community-based participatory research approach to research. One that speaks to the vulnerable; engages the NGOs & CBOs that work with victims/survivors, creates data/content that citizens can make sense of, and builds on the work undertaken by community stakeholders of this project.

Awareness raising

Building awareness within the community, using community tools, e.g., community radio, to broadcast critical content that is both thought provoking and informative and stimulates debate. Drawing on experiential stories of victims, survivors, and stakeholder support groups in the form of panel-based discussions and phone-ins or radio documentaries.  Appropriating community media practices to create such content and promote critical consciousness within the community. Communities consist of formal and informal communication networks and such content frequently stimulates discussions within the broader community.

Outreach activities and outside broadcasts where campaigns are taken to the community should also be organised. Community learning workshops, such as the PLWs used in this project, will reveal a great deal of qualitative data that will stimulate public debate by bringing modern slavery fully under the spotlight of public scrutiny. As we have discovered, when ordinary people are given platforms for their voices to be heard, and believe that what they think matters, they are capable of amazing creativity. They can produce ideas that are imaginative and meaningful, and that can contribute towards effecting socially useful transformation. They just need to be given the opportunity. We recommend a campaign of public education and awareness raising and support for Community Radio Stations.

Curricular and extra-curricular activities

The first 2 recommendations are both forms of public education aimed to encourage public knowledge and understanding. They contribute to promoting critical consciousness among the public (Freire, 1972) by making sense of poverty, exploitation, and modern slavery in their lived experiences. Understanding and intervening in reality in order to change it (where ‘reality’ and ‘it’ are modern slavery) using participatory arts-based approaches was the challenge set by the AKN Phase 2 Programme Committee. Education at all levels of society can contribute to the struggle against modern slavery.

We suggest that schools should have an important role in achieving this. An effective way of promoting community discussions is to include issues of everyday life in the learning activities. Including the study of historical and modern slavery, within the school curriculum, will enable children to make sense of the world they inhabit. In addition, introducing antislavery clubs, as part of extra-curricular activities. This helps make learning about a serious and, at times, challenging topic, enjoyable. Pupils will be encouraged to write, produce, and direct the performance of songs, poems, dances, plays, sketches, and other arts-based activities in school, as well as the community at large. Children love to share what they are learning, and this will assist in raising awareness and informing parents and other family members.

Strengthening support links

We spoke about including human rights-based NGOs & CBOs who work with victims and survivors of modern slavery as participants in our recommendation for further research. We want to explain why this is so important in the fight against modern slavery. Rights-based organisations work at grass roots levels and are often the first point of contact for victims/survivors. They are the people who plan and execute rescues. They are the people who witness first-hand the conditions that survivors are being rescued from; they witness the pain and suffering survivors and their families have been forced to endure. They are the people who help survivors start to put their lives back together. They are the people who gain the trust of survivors.

In short, they are the surrogate voices of survivors until they are strong and confident enough to be their own voices. If policy makers and administrators are serious about eradicating modern slavery, then they need to find ways of supporting the work these organisations do. We urge governments to find effective and meaningful ways of strengthening the links between the NGOs that protect children’s (and other survivors’) rights and community administration offices.

Capacity & capability building

The previous recommendation calls for, or implies the need for, a participatory approach to ameliorating the impacts of, and eradicating, modern slavery at the micro level. As we showed throughout methodological discussions, this demands that community participants have both the capacity and the capability to contribute to such community driven initiatives.

Whether it be through the use of community radio or public workshop events to stimulate public discussions, participants will require training to develop the skills and empathy required to engage with the public appropriately and effectively – regardless of the media used. Similarly, schools introducing the study of historic and modern slavery into their activities might require some training to build the capability of teaching staff to engage pupils. This might require certain levels of sensitivity, or the ability to recognize trigger points are affecting pupils detrimentally.

However, the needs of transformation might not always be solely about training to enable the capability of individuals/organisations, by developing and strengthening their skills, instincts, and abilities, to undertake certain tasks. Attention might also need to be given to the ability of a community to manage and/or effect social change. This is known as capacity.

Often used interchangeably in the literature, the two terms are related but possess a nuanced difference. Whereas capability building requires training to build or improve the skills required for change – capacity building might refer to training but might also refer to improving assets and/or knowledge, in a way that relates to a community’s ability to absorb and/or create transformation. For example, creating alternatives to outmoded cultural practices, e.g., FGM, wife inheritance, early marriage, using participatory development techniques might require capability building but will almost certainly require capacity building. Using community development techniques, in this way, respects, rather than dismisses, traditional cultural identity but does so by adopting a human right-based approach using capability and capacity building to find culturally meaningful solutions.

Community health and family planning

One of the biggest problems faced by marginalised and impoverished communities is ignorance. Ignorance of family planning, and an understanding that having large families often increase poverty and lead to modern slavery. As the Assistant Area Chief explained, among the stalwarts in these communities are the Community Health Workers, who provide practical medical and health support; act as referral points to hospital, when situations demand; patiently provide information on any given number of health related issues; organise government sponsored public health campaigns; provide resources for family planning, etc. and often act as social workers and agony aunts – providing advice and solace on any number of emotional, social, and welfare related issues.

CHWs are often at the forefront of the struggle against modern slavery and liaise with the human right NGOs/CBOs, community police, Chief, and public administrators, as well as village elders. We urge government, at all levels, to recognise and resource their contribution to the struggle against modern slavery. As with many public services in rural areas they are inadequately funded.

Funding rural schools

We have shown throughout this project that one of the most common contributors to human trafficking, in the form of child labour and early marriage, has been the inability of parents to pay school fees. Kenya boasts a system of education at primary and secondary levels that has been lauded at #1 in Africa by both the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. On the surface, it would appear to comply with the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, which calls for free and universal education for all.  However, at both levels Kenya’s schools are underfunded and their Boards of Governors feel compelled to impose school fees on all children to pay for enough teachers to meet the educational needs of the community. This leads to children from large and poor families being sent home for non-payment of fees. Children are then forced through poverty, to seek exploitative casual labour in order to pay school fees; buy uniforms and pay exam charges.

The government’s education policy is enabling the exploitation of children through child labour. We urge the Kenyan government, in the strongest terms possible, to address these matters immediately and expedite adequate funding for children’s education in rural areas.