(Press release) In an investigation spanning eight months and seven countries, a team of the Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors (NAIRE), in partnership with ZAM, explored a Russian recruitment channel that hijacks a drive by ambitious African young women
who -often desperately- want to leave their home countries. The recruitment operation, called Alabuga Start, is helped along by unscrupulous state officials in the African countries of origin. These officials, like the Russians themselves, do not warn the women that the programme on offer is to supply the Russian arms industry with manual labour.
One recruiter, in Cameroon, posted on Linkedin that the programme is “addressing one of the biggest headaches we’ve got in Africa today – illegal immigration”, implying that marshalling youth into the Russian recruitment scheme will help stop them departing through other means.
The recruitment takes place in a context where African postcolonial regimes, instead of working for development, increasingly treat their youthful population as a resource to be marketed through foreign job recruitment schemes, with one minister in Malawi using the term ‘marketability’. Another part of the same context is the Russian encroachment in many African countries, resulting in warm relations, and now collusion, with the war industry.
Among the main findings of the investigation are:
- In all seven countries, the Russian recruitment infrastructure is vast and varied, with high-profile African officials colluding and co-recruiting
- Even after being warned, many Alabuga applicants persist, either believing the warnings are “Western propaganda” or making statements like “it’s better to be exploited in a developed country than here,” or “Alabuga is my escape.”
- Upon arrival the recruits land in a military-style environment from where families at home can only rarely be called and the sparse calls are strictly monitored.
- The young women are actively groomed to establish romantic relationships at the site and embrace a new Russian ‘family’; one interviewee said he had noted several “girls getting pregnant” when he worked at Alabuga.
The findings indicate that current efforts by the West to entice African governments back into the old colonial fold may not be successful since Russia’s hold over these governments appears to be getting stronger by the day. “The West risks looking rather pityful as it competes with Russia for friendship with the same regimes that channel youth as labour to Russia’s war industry”, said ZAM team coordinator Evelyn Groenink.
A more ethical question that arises is whether these governments, seemingly unconcerned with the fate of their youth, deserve the international community’s friendship. Recent “Generation Z” protests in close to ten African countries have appealed to Western governments to stop supporting their oppressors.
ZAM Magazine will be publishing all articles on our website from 8 September onwards.
The full series of eight articles is available for co-publication, and we welcome all enquiries. The attached images may be used in co-publication. Please credit: Design by Sky Walker.
For queries, please contact info@zammagazine.com or evelyn@zammagazine.com.
