They were promised a chance to earn money, get an education abroad and gain work experience. Instead, they found themselves assembling military drones in Russia and, on one occasion, were the target of a Ukrainian drone attack.
A number of investigative reports have shed light on a Russian labor recruitment program that allegedly lured young African women to work at an industrial park in Russia with false promises. They have been forced to contribute to the Kremlin's war in Ukraine.
Women from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria have fallen prey to the scheme, which attracts recruits mainly through online job advertisements.
Press releases, such as from the Associated Press news agency, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other media, have exposed the operation called "Alabuga Start", but VOA has revealed that African countries have largely failed to intervene, or provide an official response to this practice. Some even appear to be cooperating with the Russian entity that runs the program.
The entity, called the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, has intensified efforts to expand recruitment across the African continent, says David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security.
"In some of the initial investigations of this practice, the recruiters in Africa were oblivious when asked where these women were going ," Mr. Albright said, adding that some of them now know what's going on. He hopes this will cause a "reaction from these governments to the Alabuga program and the way these women are being recruited."
Expert David Albright said representatives from Alabuga recently visited countries such as Sierra Leone, Zambia and Madagascar, signing memorandums of cooperation with local organizations despite reports of fraudulent recruitment practices and questionable labor practices.
Mr. Albright says the young women are forced to work with toxic materials, which he says are prohibited by Russian labor laws. But the governments of African countries have also been willing to engage their citizens in the "Alabuga Start" program.
VOA uncovered a number of documents online showing how government ministries in several African countries had officially advertised the program. VOA contacted authorities in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Nigeria by email and phone, but did not receive a response. Voice of America also sought comment from the leaders of the "Alabuga" program and the Russian Embassy in Washington, but again received no response.
Recruitment under false pretenses
The city of Yelabuga, known as Alabuga in the local language of the Tatar community, is located 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow in the Tatarstan region. It would hardly be an attractive place for young people from Africa.
But the nearby Alabuga Special Economic Zone has undertaken an extensive recruitment campaign on the African continent. The ads present an attractive and optimistic view of life in the "Alabuga Start" program.
In a video aimed at attracting potential recruits, an African woman is seen arriving in Alabuga, where she then starts working in a restaurant, serving a young Russian man. At the end of the video she returns to the restaurant as his pregnant wife.
Other ads show participants working in construction, cleaning and warehouse management, as well as studying and playing sports with their friends. Only one video shows women assembling drones, but there is no indication that the drones have military purposes.
According to the independent Russian news site 'Protokol', the program mainly aims to recruit young women, as the organizers believe that young men from Africa "can be very aggressive and dangerous".
Researchers and journalists found that some of the program's internal documents, as reported by Mr. Albright and others, often referred to the women as "mulattoes," an old racial designation now widely considered as offensive.
It is not difficult to understand the popularity of the program among young Africans, says the expert on Russia-Africa relations, Maxim Matusevich, who is a professor of world history at Seton Hall University.
"Many of these countries have very high unemployment rates ," he told VOA. Russia "offers employment opportunities through tempting but deceptive offers" .
Expert Matusevich believes that 'Alabuga Start' aims to solve the problem of the lack of employees in Russia due to the increased demand of the war in Ukraine.
According to Mr. Albright, this lack of action has global consequences: 'Alabuga Start' is involving young Africans in Russia's war against Ukrainians.
"It is a very fraudulent program, in the sense that the applicants did not even know that they would work for a company that is under US and European sanctions, that produces drones that are used with devastating consequences against Ukrainian civilian targets, against electricity plants" , he told VOA.
"Therefore, in this sense, they are complicit in the crime, in an international crime, considering that the war against Ukraine is illegal. They are engaged in the production of drones which are being used against civilian targets, not only against military targets ," he adds.
'Alabuga' did not start out exploiting young African women. Previously, young Russians worked on the production of drones.
In 2019, the special economic zone created the program called 'Alabuga Polytech', recruiting Russian high school students. Unlike workers from the African continent and other countries, Russian students participate in a combined four-year study and work program through an accredited technical education and parallel work in the industrial sector.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2021, this program expanded but faced challenges. When the program switched to drone production, Alabuga was forced to lobby Russian authorities to change labor laws. According to a July report by the Institute for Science and International Security, this change allowed Alabuga to employ children under the age of 18 to work with poisons.
After a while, parents began to complain about the working conditions: The participants were working 12-hour shifts at the factory and their movements were under strict control, according to Mr. Albright. He said the program has since stopped recruiting employees under the age of 18.
When the special economic zone launched the 'Alabuga Start' program and began recruiting workers from abroad in 2022, the program focused almost entirely on drone production.
According to calculations by Mr. Albright's organization, only one-third of Alabuga Polytech students are engaged in drone production, while in the Alabuga Start program, over 90 percent of employees are involved in drone production. drones.
Despite this apparent difference, the organizers seem to have often mixed up the two programs, including in some cases where 'Alabuga Start' participants, dressed in school uniforms, are seen in promotional advertisements.
Alabuga's recent expansion into African countries signals an increase in its recruitment efforts.
VOA found that African governments and governments of other countries have in some cases been willing to cooperate. The Federal Ministry of Education of Nigeria published on its website a document announcing open tenders for 'Alabuga Start' in 2023.
Uganda's Ministry of Education and Sports released a similar notice. On the website Scribd, a digital document library, VOA found two files, which appear to be official letters from ministries of the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso, announcing that Alabuga Start had reserved places for participants from these countries in the year 2023.
VOA also found a document from the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training announcing open applications for 'Alabuga Start' in 2023.
Numerous meetings of representatives of the special economic zone with African diplomats and government officials, some of which included the signing of memorandums of understanding, appear to signal a deepening of ties.
Mr. Albright emphasizes that the drone factory of the special economic zone has been a key point of Russian-Iranian cooperation during the war against Ukraine.
"Alabuga is a special economic zone that basically builds and rents, or sells buildings for civil industry ," he said. "With the war in Ukraine, international representatives withdrew from Alabuga, and this caused the factory managers to need funds. Then they signed a contract with the Russian government and the Iranian government to build drones . "
The Alabuga factory mainly assembled the Shahed-136, the Iranian kamikaze drone.
In the first half of 2023, about 100 students of the polytechnic faculty of 'Alabuga' traveled to Tehran for a two-month training on the production of 'Shahed-136' drones, reported the newspaper 'Washington Post' in August 2023.
Alabuga Start participants are mainly used as low-skilled workers to perform the simplest tasks in assembling drone frames. They are given a list of 100 Russian words they need to know to participate in the program. The list consists mainly of basic vocabulary, but also includes some higher-level words: "connect", "remove", "factory" and "task".
The program's promotional materials seen by Voice of America largely lack the military nature of the work. It indicates that participants work in the service industry, construction or non-military industrial production.
A brochure states that, after the end of the contract with Alabuga Start, participants have the option of continuing to work on a permanent basis, finding a job at another Alabuga factory or enrolling in the polytechnic faculty.
The brochure also includes images that appear to show articles from the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal with articles praising the factory and its wages. In reality, the images have been edited to hide the fact that the articles are about the production of military drones.
This work has put African women in direct danger. On April 22, a Ukrainian drone crashed into the dormitory where the participants of the 'Alabuga Start' program live.
A day later, Alabuga Start released a video featuring a Kenyan woman, one of the program's participants, who said she was going to work in a coffee shop. The participant said that she had come to work and study at 'Alabuga' polytechnic faculty and not at 'Alabuga Start'.
"Those who attacked our hostel today are real barbarians and deserve serious punishment ," she said. "They wanted to scare us. But I want to tell you that they did not succeed. You will not scare me, because Alabuga is a strong country and we will survive" .
*This article is a collaboration between VOA Africa Division and VOA Russian Service./ VOA (A2 Televizion)
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