On 2 September 2026, President Ruto directed action against foreigners involved in hawking and certain small businesses, arguing that such activities should be reserved for Kenyans. The remarks have generated considerable anxiety among migrant communities. Reports indicate that hundreds of Burundians subsequently sought travel documents to return home, while some foreign nationals reported threats and growing hostility.

For ITUC-Africa, this constitutes an early-warning alert. Political statements that distinguish Africans as unwanted “foreigners”, particularly in circumstances of unemployment and economic hardship, can quickly legitimise discrimination, profiling, harassment and ultimately violence. Africa has witnessed enough episodes of xenophobia and Afrophobia to know that such rhetoric must never be treated lightly.

We note the subsequent clarification by Kenya’s Foreign Affairs authorities that the President’s remarks should not be interpreted as a blanket prohibition on foreigners and that documented foreign nationals with the requisite permits and licences remain legally protected. This clarification is important. However, governments must recognise that once exclusionary rhetoric enters public discourse, its consequences cannot always be controlled through subsequent explanations.

Kenya has every right to regulate employment, immigration and commercial activity and to protect workers and small enterprises from unlawful or unfair practices. But economic hardship must not be explained through nationality, nor should migrant workers and African traders become convenient scapegoats for structural problems of unemployment, inequality, informality and inadequate social protection.

We are particularly concerned about what this signals for Africa’s continental integration agenda. The AfCFTA is founded on the ambition of creating a single African market, facilitating movement of persons, increasing intra-African trade and building an integrated and prosperous continent. Indeed, President Ruto himself recently argued that AfCFTA policies should make it easier-not harder-for micro, small and medium enterprises to participate in cross-border trade. Policies and rhetoric that encourage Africans to see one another primarily as economic threats run contrary to that Pan-African ambition.

It is deeply regrettable when leaders respond to broad and sometimes unsubstantiated claims about foreigners by adopting language capable of driving Afrophobia. Governments should rely on evidence, enforce laws fairly and individually, and address abuses without criminalising or stigmatising entire communities.

Africa is one. Africans must not become strangers to one another on their own continent. The future we seek cannot be one in which goods and capital cross borders more easily than African workers, traders and families.

ITUC-Africa therefore calls on the Government of Kenya to ensure that all enforcement measures are lawful, proportionate and non-discriminatory; protect migrant workers and traders from intimidation and violence; and reaffirm unequivocally Kenya’s commitment to Pan-African solidarity, regional integration and the AfCFTA.

Issued in Lome, Togo, on September 7, 2026.

Akhator Joel Odigie
General Secretary
ITUC-Africa