Low-income wage earners have complained of exploitation by employers taking advantage of Covid-19 disruption.

The affected workers, among them house helps, cleaners, construction labourers, plantation workers, say absence of a minimum wage-which government has not passed until now despite endless promises and studies, is abetting the exploitation.

Without the minimum wage, the desperate workers are at the mercy of their employers, many of which are paying them below what they deserve for the work done.

Uwineza Esperance got a job to work as a house help last year, to be paid Rwf10, 000 per month, shortly after starting, more people joined the family, increasing work load.

For the first two months, she was paid, but her employer didn’t pay her for the next four months, until she left the job and went back to the village, penniless and dejected.

Although such cases have been happening, the pandemic worsened the exploitation, with affected workers saying employers are more brazen now, yet many of the informal sector workers are not empowered enough to seek legal redress.

A security guard spoke to Rwanda Today on condition of anonymity said he hasn’t been paid for the past three months, yet he has been working for 12 hours every day. He was thrown out of the house he was renting, and now lives with a relative in a place that is very far from work, and had to walk to work.

The situation was made worse during the time government employees worked from home, because labour inspectors couldn’t do field work to supervise and follow up on cases of exploitation.

Many of the informal sector workers have suffered food deprivations, intimidation, some have been kicked out of jobs without pay, while some have been sexually harassed and exploited by their employers.

Efforts to get a comment from the Ministry of Public Service and Labour proved futile by press time. Biraboneye Africain, head of CESTRAL, an umbrella body of workers’ unions in Rwanda, said much as the revised labour law of 2018 addressed challenges faced by informal sector workers, lack of minimum wage is biggest impediment to their wellbeing, and exploitation.

“Exploitation of informal workers is on the increase, many of these workers do not belong to any union so they have no one fighting for them, I advise to all these workers to join unions to have their issues dealt with legally, and limit this kind of exploitation,” he said.