Governing by crisis : A labor migration gone terribly wrong
The abuse of Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia is not an overnight happening; it took decades and involved Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the world at large. To contain it Ethiopia is now in a state of governing by crisis
Tesfaye Ejigu
Over the past two decades, the face of migration in and from Ethiopia has been changing from small numbers of political refugee flows in the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s to a gradual mass form of labor migration as Ethiopians started to enjoy traveling freely to seek employment opportunities abroad. Although Ethiopia is witnessing its own share of skilled labor drain, the larger picture of labor migration is now characterized by low skilled mass labor migration mostly to Middle Eastern countries notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai.
