By Sr. Jane Kimathi, Pactpan Director of Programs
At one of East Africa’s major international airports, I sat quietly in prayer, fingers sliding over my rosary beads — unaware that I was about to witness a scene that would change the way I understood the realities of human trafficking and survival migration.
A long, silent line of young men and women, aged roughly between 15 and 29, stood before me. Some were dressed in matching pink cotton tracksuits; others wore white T-shirts printed with Arabic script. They queued to board a Qatar Airways flight — more than two hundred of them. On the surface, they looked like ordinary travelers. But the air around them was heavy with uncertainty. Their eyes told a different story: blank stares, anxious clutches on passports and carry-ons, as if holding onto the last pieces of home.
I wept. Quietly but uncontrollably—as if I had just received tragic news.
My mind turned to the returnees I’ve met, young people who had survived similar journeys. I couldn’t help but wonder: What kind of future awaited these travelers? Did they know what was coming—the long hours of domestic labor, the isolation, the risk of abuse or even disappearance? Had anyone told them the truth?
As the African proverb says, “The youth are the arrows in the bow of a strong nation.” But what happens when those arrows are launched blindly into systems that promise opportunity, yet deliver exploitation?
This is not theoretical. It’s personal. And it’s urgent.
The forces that prey on our youth are cunning and calculated. Traffickers, unscrupulous recruiters, and informal migration brokers exploit poverty, desperation, and misinformation. The result is not just individual harm but a slow, systemic erosion—what author Peter Gastrow once called “termite-like” criminal networks: silent, persistent, and deeply corrosive.
These young people were not just travelers. They were students, farmers, siblings, neighbors, and future leaders. Their journey may have begun with hope, but it was now overshadowed by desperation. This was not migration by choice. It was migration for survival.
That moment at the airport tore through the abstraction of statistics. It became a human truth: Africa is silently losing its youth across borders. And we are not doing enough to stop it.
This was not an isolated incident. On a previous trip through my local international airport, I encountered another group of nearly 70 young travelers. They, too, were silent. When I tried to engage them in conversation, they were afraid—even of a stranger like me, even when I spoke gently.
I keep asking myself: Does this happen every day? Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing? Or does it strike me harder because I’ve worked for years in anti-human trafficking?
At one point, I wanted to shout, “Stop it!” — to someone, anyone.
These are not just statistics. They are lives caught in a web of deception, fear, and structural neglect. Many are lured by false promises, funneled into unsafe labor, and left unprotected in unfamiliar lands. And the international system allows it to continue.
We must confront the root causes—poverty, joblessness, exclusion, and weak education systems. Our governments must develop and enforce safe, legal, and dignified migration pathways. We need better bilateral labor agreements, stronger regulation of recruiters, and real accountability for trafficking networks.
But systemic change doesn’t stop at policy. Civil society, faith leaders, educators, and communities must rise to protect our youth. We must invest in vocational training, entrepreneurship, and support systems for returnees—programs that offer hope and alternatives.
As Pope Francis reminded us in 2020: “Young people who are forced to migrate are especially vulnerable. Let us hear their voices.”
Africa is not at war. We are not under siege by natural disasters. Yet we are losing our children—not to bombs or storms, but to economic despair and modern slavery.
Let that sink in.
Let us not wait until another plane departs with hundreds more. Let us speak up. Let us act. Let us restore hope — before hope itself becomes yet another casualty of our silence.
Africa’s youth are not disposable. They are not burdens. They are our strength, our promise, our future.
And that future must not fade beyond the borders of our concern.
