Kenya Airways, the national flag carrier for the East African country, on Monday launched a public awareness and outreach campaign against human trafficking and highlighted its own “Trafficking in Persons” (TIPS) policy. Both the TIPS and the public awareness campaign were developed in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC). The airline’s TIPS policy came into effect in January and the public awareness campaign was directed at both airline staff and the wider public.

“Kenya Airways connects Kenya to the rest of the Africa and the World through its vast network. This network and its connectivity should only be used for good and to advance the development of Africa,” affirmed airline chief financial officer Hellen Mwariri Mathuka. “We therefore stand against all forms of human trafficking, fully support the elimination of the exploitation of human beings and modern slavery and will not condone human trafficking in any part of our organisation. We have invested in capacity building programmes to give our employees the tools to identify, and report suspected cases of human trafficking because we recognise that our employees at the airport and on flights are uniquely positioned to look out for this type of crime.”

“Following our UNODC training, we were impressed by Kenya Airways’ efforts to fight human trafficking,” highlighted UNODC deputy regional representative for Eastern Africa Maria Temesvari. “We are honoured to work with Kenya Airways today to educate the travelling public and Kenya Airways employees. I wish to congratulate Kenya Airways on the launch of their policy on trafficking in persons and acknowledge its role to further enhance the Government of Kenya’s capacity in combatting trafficking and increasing the number of detections and investigations of this crime.”

The airline’s development of a TIPS policy followed a UNODC initiative, back in December 2021. In that month, the UN agency organised a specialised anti-TIP inter-agency workshop at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. That four-day interactive workshop saw experts from two UNODC programmes (the Better Migration Management programme and the Airport Communication Project) work with airports authority, customs, immigration, Kenya Airways, police and prosecution personnel based at the airport. The outcome was the drawing up of a number of recommendations for the authorities, the airport and the airline, on how they could help counter TIP.

Kenya Airways’ TIP policy applies to all its staff, establishments and operations, and includes all operations carried out on behalf of the company and its subsidiaries. Employees who violate the policy will face disciplinary action. Other individuals, and/or organisations, working on behalf of the airline, who violate the policy, will have their relationship with Kenya Airways terminated. Violation of the policy will also see the criminal prosecution of the responsible people.

The airline is a member of the Sky Team Alliance. Its own network embraces 42 destinations around the world, of which 35 are in Africa. Its flagship aircraft type is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.