Labour Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua has highlighted several ways Kenyans can spot a bogus job offer from any foreign country.
Speaking during an interview on Saturday night at Citizen TV, CS Mutua noted that several red flags do not necessarily involve being asked to pay for a job that traps unsuspecting Kenyans into modern-day slavery and worse.
According to the CS, these might include the lack of a job offer, which the Ministry of Labour attested to before leaving the country.
"Usually, before you leave the country, there is a job offer that has to be attested by the Ministry of Labour, so if someone has sent you a job offer, ask them if they can see the demand or the offer that was given to you to recruit us, attested by the Kenyan embassy?"
The second red flag Mutua mentioned was if the money is too good to be true. In this case, Mutua advised Kenyans to be cognisant of offers whose pay is too high and follow their gut.
Thirdly, he revealed that if the agency downplayed the need for a work visa and insisted that their travel visa would suffice, the job offer was probably not legitimate.
Mutua noted that most fraudulent job offers come from fake agencies that promise a work visa on arrival, only for Kenyans to find themselves with unscrupulous job offers.
"Real agencies, and the way the government works, are that before you leave Kenya, you get a temporary work visa or a full work visa. Not a travel visa," CS Mutua revealed.
"If anyone is giving you a tourism visa, that person wants you to go into slavery. That person is using you."
However, Mutua claimed that being asked to pay for opportunities was not necessarily a red flag, as it is an "old-age tradition" that also happens in legitimate job offers.
According to the CS, some of these recruitment agencies, including the legitimate ones, made money by receiving tokens for their services. He, however, warned against paying a lot of money that is not quantifiable for the job offer.
If one finds themself in a situation where their job offer did not match what they were put to work to do, Mutua advised that Kenyans reach out to the nearest Kenyan embassy for assistance to ensure they are not subjected to slavery.
