This investigation is also available as this week’s Slow Newscast. Listen to A lonely death on Jersey here
For weeks in the run-up to her meeting with immigration officials in St Helier, her friends said Jane Kiiti had only been sleeping two hours a night.
The 52-year-old migrant worker from Kenya had lived on Jersey on and off for 20 years. She worked as a waitress at the Radisson Blu Waterfront hotel in St Helier, where the lights from the rooms are reflected in the water round the yachts in the marina. Like hundreds of other migrants, she lived on nine-month seasonal work permits, which require workers to leave for three months of the year at their own expense every year.
In October 2023, Kiiti had a meeting at the Jersey Customs and Immigration Service. She was in chronic pain following an operation on her ankle earlier that year, and friends say she was concerned about her visa status, a source of constant anxiety for her.
“It was the question she asked me all the time,” said a friend, who asked not to be named. “She’d say: ‘I’m not going to be allowed back.’ And I’d say: ‘You will, you will.’”
On 9 October, 2023, Kiiti attended her meeting. But 24 hours later, she had taken her own life.
Last year, there were 2,432 seasonal worker permits issued to people coming to Jersey, a number that has more than doubled since 2021. The largest groups are from India, the Philippines and Kenya.
The permits were introduced in 2000 as a way to help Jersey bring in desperately needed labour, without having to award settled status in return. Workers on other visa arrangements, such as bankers or doctors, receive residency and can buy property after 10 years.
The rules – which have been likened to the kafala system for migrant workers in the Gulf states – leave Jersey’s migrant workers completely dependent on their employers, who usually house and feed them. For the first six months of their first stay, they do not have the right to healthcare beyond emergency treatment. If workers complain, they run the risk of not being invited back the following year. If they do not find any placement, they have seven days to leave the island – even if, like Kiiti, they have worked there for 20 years.
“Their entire presence in the jurisdiction is dependent on it,” said Dr James Sinclair, an international human rights lawyer who previously worked in Jersey. “Their shelter is entirely dependent on them maintaining their job. If you create that situation, then you cannot be surprised when either those people are exploited or they don’t complain about their exploitation.”
Until recently, migrants were not allowed to take on any other work in Jersey without the written permission of their employers, which was frequently refused. That rule led critics to compare the system to a form of servitude, which would violate both the UK Modern Slavery Act, which does not apply in Jersey (a crown dependency which can make its own rules), and EU human rights law, which does.
“As soon as you fall out with your employer, if they decide you’re a bad potato in the sack, they can just go to immigration and say: ‘I’m done with this person’,” explained Joshua Muchiri of the Kenyan Jersey Committee, a body that represents the 700 Kenyan nationals living and working on the island. “For people like Jane – who have dependants, or loans pegged [to] working here – it is a big thing. And, as you saw, it didn’t end well.”
Kiiti was described by a friend as a “happy person” and “lovely lady”, who had attended an event for the local Kenyan community not long before her death. “She was the only breadwinner in the family,” the friend added. “That weight was on her shoulders.”
In 2019, Kiiti had fallen down a flight of stairs while working at the Mayfair hotel, and suffered a compound fracture in her ankle. She was in chronic pain but continued to work while she waited for an operation which, while alleviating some of the pain, would still leave her disabled.
In 2022, the States of Jersey had granted Kiiti discretionary leave to remain while she underwent treatment, and she had an operation in May 2023. But she was anxious that, once her ankle healed, her discretionary leave would be withdrawn and she would be sent home. A single mother, she was still supporting her daughter through university in Kenya.
David, Kiiti’s friend who has also worked in Jersey for more than 20 years, described the pressure felt by migrants on the island. “It’s constant anxiety, constant worry. You don’t know whether you’re coming back. If the boss is angry at you one day, your head is saying: ‘I’m not getting a permit again’ … it’s just that constant feeling of being on a leash.”
‘Our labour is the only thing we have to contribute here … we’re not a member of this society’
David, migrant worker
On 2 October, a week before she died, Kiiti visited her doctor, James Mair. “She [said] her visa was threatened and that she needed my support in persuading the authorities that she needed to stay in the island,” he said. “She desperately wanted to be allowed to stay in Jersey.”
Mair wrote a letter for Kiiti to give to the immigration department but never received a response. The next time he heard about her was when the coroner called to say she was dead.
“I probably could have had some sway with somebody useful and probably quite senior. I could have been an advocate for her. It’s a source of huge regret I never did,” Mair said.
Jersey’s government said Kiiti’s immigration status was not under threat when she died. “At no point was Ms Kiiti instructed to leave Jersey or told she would not be able to return,” Jersey Customs and Immigration Service said in a statement. “As a service, [we] endeavoured to do all we could to support Ms Kiiti.” It added that the 9 October meeting at Maritime House in St Helier was a “welfare check”.
In their conclusion, the coroner in Kiiti’s inquest said they felt the Jersey authorities had done what they could for her. But Lesley Katsande of Friends of Africa, a local NGO that advocates for African migrants, described that as “absolute hogwash”. “I walked this journey with Jane … [that statement] disregards every visa holder on this island who is suffering the same way.”
In a statement, Jersey’s home affairs minister, Mary Le Hegarat, said the temporary work permit policy was “designed to meet the needs of Jersey as a small island economy” and that the government had no plans to phase it out. She added that passing a modern slavery law in Jersey had been discussed but was not a priority. “Legislation is time-consuming and the reality is that I have to balance this against other priorities.”
Kiiti’s friend David continues to work on the island. He says that, even if he were offered residency, he wouldn’t take it. “We’ve been made to feel that our labour is the only thing that we have to contribute here, that we’re not a member of this society,” he said. “You can be yourself in Kenya. You can be free. [In Jersey] you are not sure whether next year you have that job … It’s better to have freedom. To be a human being you need to be free.”
Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org