Returning, Reintegrating, Recycling in Ethiopia
Addis Ababa — Lured by the promise of good employment opportunities and high salaries promised by labour brokers, 19-year-old Saba Getachew Mengesha did not think twice when a recruitment agent approached her with a job offer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Young, desperate and vulnerable, Saba was easily convinced and in 2004, she fell for the agent’s promises and left her home city in Ethiopia with high hopes and big dreams.
Upon arrival in the Gulf Kingdom, the opportunities she was promised by the agent were not as forthcoming as she had imagined. She was suddenly presented with new conditions; her salary was substantially reduced; and her passport had to be taken away as a ‘security bond’. Saba quickly realized her predicament, but by then she was in a foreign country, alone and with no money to return. She was trapped and had no choice, but to comply with the new terms that had been set for her.
For several months, Saba did not receive a salary as her remuneration was withheld by the broker, who informed her that she had to pay back the recruitment fees and the travel expenses from Ethiopia to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Even after she had cleared her debt, the agency still kept half of her salary as well as her passport.
Whenever she inquired about her salary, she was threatened with the prospect of imprisonment and deportation; without her passport or any other legal means to fend for herself, the threat caused her great anxiety and fear.
For several years Saba was employed as a domestic worker, with the broker rotating her between various, hard and poorly paid jobs. Despite the insufficient salary, Saba was able to send small amounts of money back to her family in Ethiopia.
After six years in Saudi Arabia, Saba married another Ethiopian migrant also living and working there and in time they had two children. Now, with the support from her husband, she took the bold decision to leave the recruitment agency and decided to find employment for herself, so she could earn a full salary to support their growing family.
She bounced between part-time jobs for several years but her situation took a turn for the worse when she tried to secure resident permits for her two children. Her work permit was revoked and she was immediately placed in a detention center. On the 20 October 2018, Saba, her husband, and their two children were deported back to Ethiopia.
“I came back with nothing,” she says. Now 34 and a mother of two, Saba is back in the country she left when she was just a teenager. “Coming back home was bittersweet; I was sad that I came back with nothing. I didn’t know if I was going to find work, I was worried for my children, but I was also happy that I am back to a country where I know the culture and the language.”
Like many migrants finding themselves back in the same realities that once forced them to migrate, Saba struggled to reintegrate both socially and economically. As the months passed and she could not secure employment, her hopes started fading. “I did not know how I was going to feed my children,” she recalls.
Fortunately, her situation took a positive turn thanks to the cooperation initiated between the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Penda Manufacturing PLC, a paper collection and recycling company based in Addis Ababa. Under the agreement, Penda Manufacturing PLC employs returning migrants from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to run mobile paper-waste-deposit sites. The Penda Manufacturing initiative is called ‘Worke’, and involves members of the community collecting waste paper, which they then sell to the company.
Saba was accepted in the Penda Manufacturing PLC program after a thorough selection process from a pool of other returning migrants. The program’s candidates are selected based on need, interest, commitment and individual situation.
As a ‘worke’ woman she is based in Saris, a neighborhood in central Addis Ababa where she acts as a broker between the local community and the businesses which sell their waste paper and cartons to her, and Penda Manufacturing which buys it from her. Penda Manufacturing then transports the waste paper to the company’s paper pulp factory, where it is processed into pulp before being sold onward to businesses who produce tissue and carton boxes from the pulp.
It has been seven months since Saba joined Penda Manufacturing PLC and she cannot hide her joy. “This opportunity has given me hope and enabled me to resettle quickly, as I constantly interact with the community in my day-to-day work. This job made me more confident and it has truly empowered me; I can afford to feed my children and to send them to school,” she says with a broad smile. She has also encouraged other women in her position not to shy away from opportunities like these.
The CEO of Penda Manufacturing PLC, Marie Nielsen, lauds the partnership with IOM, explaining that the partnership has simplified their recruitment process, as they can easily recruit from a motivated and hardworking pool of candidates.
The partnership aligns with IOM’s ‘Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR)’ programmes, which emphasize the sustainability of voluntary returns. In particular, IOM’s Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division encourages the creation of ‘green job’ opportunities, which improve not only sustainability of the returnee reintegration process, but also contribute to sustainability of the environment in the country of return and contribute to minimizing forced migration due to the environment.
In Ethiopia, almost all packaging material is imported despite there being sufficient paper pulp in the country to produce materials locally. Penda Manufacturing PLC was founded 4 years ago with the aim to close this gap and reduce the cost of packaging, by promoting locally produced packaging.
This initiative not only boosts the local industry and creates jobs, but it also has a positive environmental impact. Recycling paper prevents waste paper from being sent to the landfill, saving already scarce landfill space. More importantly, it reduces the rate of deforestation from the pulp and paper industry, which accounts for 6 per cent of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (International Energy Agency-IEA, 2007). Recycling locally also reduces GHG emissions from the logistics chain, especially freight emissions from the import of new paper pulp. Landfills also contribute substantially to methane gas emissions, which is one of the most potent GHGs.
Since its inception, Penda Manufacturing PLC has provided additional income for approximately 5,000 waste collectors and currently has 95 permanent employees. Penda Manufacturing PLC collects paper from over 170 offices and factories around Addis Ababa. Through their environmental awareness drive, the company has educated young leaders in about 650 schools on the importance of recycling.
Nielsen also reveals plans to expand the company’s operations beyond Addis Ababa. This development will lead to the new recruitment of an additional 200 returning migrants.
The partnership has not gone unnoticed. The UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons has praised the initiative in their recent social inclusion report presented at the UN Human Rights Council on 27 June 2019, explaining that, “For many survivors, access to employment and hence to economic independence is the most important aspect that can lead to their social inclusion. Economic empowerment is of paramount importance for the psychological well-being of individuals, as it increases self-esteem and self-fulfillment, contributing to social recognition and inclusion.”
In addition, the UN Special Rapporteur was also positively impressed by the work of IOM in Ethiopia, which has recently received mass returns — estimated at 200,000 persons in 2018 — of vulnerable Ethiopian migrants, including trafficked persons, from Saudi Arabia.
IOM has been addressing the links between migration, environment and climate change since the 1990s at national, regional and global levels, working to develop the evidence base, build the capacity of policymakers, support policy development and respond at operational levels.
The Organization is also aiming to integrate environmental considerations across its world-wide operations. By 2030, IOM aims to be recognized for leading the way on environmental sustainability efforts in migration management, in line with the Organization’s significant commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
For more information on the links between migration, environment and climate change, visit the IOM Environmental Migration Portal: https://environmentalmigration.iom.
This story was written by the IOM Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) team in the Regional Office for East and Horn of Africa: Lisa Lim Ah Ken and Ivyne Mabaso, with support from the IOM Ethiopia country office and MECC Headquarters in Geneva. For additional information please contact IOM Ethiopia Programme Support Unit at: iomethiopiapsu@iom.int
Originally published at https://medium.com.
