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‘Someone else will do it for less’: refugees in Kenya are powering tech for dwindling pay

In a portable building in Kakuma, a refugee camp near Kenya’s northern border with South Sudan, Grace used ChatGPT to research translations of Christian hymns in languages she doesn’t speak. She didn’t know the client, the purpose of her work or whether she would be paid, but as a refugee unable to legally work in Kenya, she needed any opportunity she could get. Grace, who requested anonymity due to a nondisclosure agreement, prompted ChatGPT to translate the hymn’s English text into the assigned east Asian lang…

By the Truvace desk2 min read1 sourceJournalismTRV-2026-1424· cite & verify
‘Someone else will do it for less’: refugees in Kenya are powering tech for dwindling pay

In brief

A Guardian investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen refugees in the Kakuma camp in Kenya describes how AI and tech outsourcing work reaches people who cannot legally work in the country. One refugee used ChatGPT to research hymn translations for a platform owned by RWS, with no knowledge of the client or purpose, and with payment left to a discretionary reward.

The account matters because UN agencies and tech firms have promoted remote work for refugees as a win-win, yet the reporting suggests the benefits are lopsided as pay erodes and arrangements grow opaque. What remains unclear is how rewards are assessed, how widely the discretionary model has spread, and whether skilled refugees' better outcomes can be replicated for most workers.

Main points

  1. A hymn-research project on AOP Connect advertised $9,000 in rewards, to be divided among an unknown number of contributors rather than paid as guaranteed wages.
  2. Before Remotasks shut in 2024, workers regularly took home 500 to 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($3 to $6) a day.
  3. Some refugees annotating weapons, wounds and pornography reportedly developed post-traumatic stress symptoms, according to Hydrogene.
  4. Skilled refugees working as web developers and software engineers with direct clients found the work a gamechanger, but most were limited to low-paid microwork.
  5. AOP Connect's spokesperson says rewards are communicated transparently and that the platform is not AI-enabled or used for AI-model training.

The problem

Refugees in Kakuma doing AI-related microwork see pay vanish or become discretionary, with little transparency, trauma exposure from violent content, and fewer entry-level opportunities.

The rundown

The Solidarity Initiative for Refugees has trained more than 2,000 refugees and connected over half with remote tech work, from long-term jobs to short gigs. Its compound offers a computer lab, Starlink internet and reliable electricity, though a South Sudanese engineer fears that senior engineers are no longer hiring juniors or interns because of AI.

Joan Kinyua of the Data Labelers Association said she saw wages and conditions for entry-level data annotation eroding from 2018, with small mistakes costing pay and a need to be constantly available. Camp context matters too: over 300,000 residents depend almost entirely on humanitarian aid, and less than half of households have income.

The company's account differs from the workers' account. A spokesperson said pay depends on quality, relevance and timeliness, and that confidentiality is critical to clients, while participants said there is little transparency about how assessments are made. The text also notes transcription work in Kakuma probably used by the US military, which refugees said they did not consent to.

Sources

  1. JournalismThe Guardian2026-10-08

The debate