On a quiet morning at a rehabilitation centre in Addis Ababa, a young Ethiopian woman sat silently in a counselling room. Months earlier, she had left for the Gulf full of hope after following every official requirement for overseas employment. She registered with a licensed recruitment agency, underwent mandatory pre-departure orientation, signed an employment contract and travelled through Ethiopia’s legal labour migration system.
She believed she had done everything right.
Yet she returned home not with the financial security she had dreamed of, but with severe psychological trauma requiring rehabilitation before she could begin rebuilding her life.
Her story is not unique.
Across Ethiopia, thousands of citizens continue to seek employment abroad each year, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, hoping to escape unemployment, support their families and secure a better future. In recent years, the Ethiopian government has invested considerable effort in reforming overseas labour migration by strengthening legal recruitment systems, tightening oversight of private employment agencies and introducing new digital registration mechanisms.
These reforms are built around a simple principle: fair recruitment.
The objective is clear. Workers should migrate legally through licensed agencies, receive accurate information before departure, sign transparent employment contracts and understand both their rights and responsibilities before boarding an aircraft.
The reforms also seek to eliminate the long-standing influence of illegal brokers whose deceptive promises have exposed thousands of Ethiopians to trafficking, forced labour and exploitation.
But an important question remains.
What happens after a worker leaves Ethiopia?
Does fair recruitment alone guarantee protection once migrants arrive in destination countries? And when legally recruited workers face abuse, injury or psychological distress abroad, does Ethiopia’s migrant protection system respond effectively throughout the entire migration cycle—from recruitment and employment to return and reintegration?
To answer these questions, this investigation interviewed returnee migrant workers, officials from the Ministry of Labour and Skills, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU), a licensed private employment agency and Agar Ethiopia, an organization supporting vulnerable returnees.
The findings reveal a more nuanced picture than either critics or advocates often present.
Ethiopia’s legal recruitment system has made measurable progress in reducing some of the risks historically associated with overseas employment. However, the experiences of returnee workers suggest that fair recruitment is only the first step in protecting migrant workers. The real challenge begins after departure.
A System Built on Reform
For decades, labour migration from Ethiopia was characterized by informal brokers, irregular migration routes and weak oversight. Many workers travelled with limited information, signed contracts they could not read or understand, or arrived abroad only to discover that promised wages and working conditions differed significantly from what they had been told.
Recognizing these challenges, Ethiopia introduced a strengthened legal framework governing overseas employment. The reforms place greater emphasis on transparency, accountability and worker protection while requiring licensed recruitment agencies to register workers through the national Labour Market Information System (LMIS), verify foreign job orders, provide mandatory pre-departure orientation and ensure employment contracts are properly explained before departure.
Officials at the Ministry of Labour and Skills argue that these reforms have significantly improved the governance of overseas employment by strengthening oversight, licensing procedures and coordination with destination countries.
The International Organization for Migration shares that assessment.
According to IOM, Ethiopia continues to experience substantial labour migration, particularly to Gulf countries, while expanding opportunities through bilateral labour agreements with additional destinations. However, the organization cautions that irregular migration remains a serious concern, fuelled by misinformation, economic hardship and the continued activities of unlicensed brokers.
IOM identifies deceptive recruitment, contract substitution, excessive recruitment costs, document confiscation and inadequate knowledge of workers’ rights as some of the most common vulnerabilities migrant workers continue to face during the recruitment process.
Access to accurate information before departure, the organization argues, remains one of the strongest protections available to prospective migrant workers.
A licensed Ethiopian recruitment agency interviewed for this investigation says today’s recruitment procedures differ significantly from those of previous years.
According to the agency, workers are registered through the national Labour Market Information System, matched only with approved foreign job orders, required to undergo medical examinations and pre-departure orientation, and provided with employment contracts translated into languages they understand. Workers also receive information about embassy contacts, grievance mechanisms and emergency procedures before departure.
Yet even licensed agencies acknowledge that legal recruitment cannot eliminate every risk.
They identify illegal brokers, weak enforcement in some destination countries, limited labour inspections and insufficient consular capacity as continuing challenges that undermine worker protection even after migrants have travelled legally.
That acknowledgement becomes particularly significant when viewed alongside the experiences of Ethiopian workers themselves.
