Many tech firms recruit content moderators and other personnel from across Africa to work in Nairobi, the continent’s “Silicon Valley”. But dodgy contracts and residency issues can leave migrants stranded. OpenDemocracy investigated the death of Nigerian Ladi Olubunmi and noted the comment from the Nigerian consulate on the fate of its migrant citizens: “They are not children.”
Two Bibles
In March 2025, a neighbour noticed a foul smell emanating from Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi’s apartment and called one of her colleagues, who came to check on her. Peering through the window, they saw that Olubunmi was dead. Her decomposing body lay on her bed beside two Bibles.
Two years earlier, Olubunmi had upended her entire life, closing her women’s clothing business in Nigeria, telling her fiancé that their marriage would have to wait, and boarding a plane that would take her more than 5,000 kilometres away from her friends and family. Like thousands of Africans from across the continent, the 41-year-old arrived in Kenya full of hope for a new start. She had landed a new job in Nairobi – nicknamed “Silicon Savannah” because of its tech boom – as a front-desk assistant at Teleperformance, a French multinational technology support company whose clients include Meta, Google and TikTok.
Expatriate employees “were kept in a state of permanent anxiety”
OpenDemocracy began investigating the circumstances of Olubunmi’s death more than a year ago and uncovered worrying conditions at Teleperformance. Expatriate employees at the company told us they were kept in a state of permanent anxiety and precarity, overworked and unable to seek adequate help or support. Some who had worked at Teleperformance’s Nairobi office told us they had been brought to Kenya on tourist visas, on the promise of jobs with appealing titles, only to discover that the actual work involved content moderation for TikTok. This required them to spend long hours watching graphic footage of murders, rape and child abuse in order to remove offensive or harmful content from users’ homepages (1).
Workers also said they were paid less than they had been promised and required to work long shifts at all hours of the day, while being disciplined if their daily half-hour breaks ran over. When they asked to return home to see loved ones, managers warned them that, because of their undocumented status, they could be arrested if they tried to leave Kenya.
Not the first time
This is not the first time – or place – that Teleperformance has been accused of exploitation or malpractice involving TikTok content moderators. One of the company’s call-centre employees jumped to his death from the third floor of its Cairo office in December 2021, prompting colleagues to blame stressful workplace conditions. In Colombia, a 2023 investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Time magazine found that Teleperformance’s TikTok moderators earned as little as $10 a day for watching videos of murder, suicide and child abuse. In France, the company is facing a lawsuit from investors who say they were misled about content moderators’ working conditions. In Ghana, lawyers representing content moderators employed by Majorel, which Teleperformance acquired in a deal valued at $3.3 billion in 2023, are investigating a case against Meta over alleged psychological distress arising from their work. Some of the workers openDemocracy spoke to had initially been recruited by Majorel and transferred to Teleperformance following the acquisition, while others were recruited afterwards. Workers said they saw no improvement in their working conditions after the company changed hands.
A Teleperformance spokesperson told openDemocracy that she was “not in a position to comment on specific incidents or individual cases in other countries, as doing so would require detailed context and respect for the privacy of those involved”. She said the company’s global wellness programme extends across all the markets in which it operates, “including Egypt, the Dominican Republic and Kenya”.
In 2025, Teleperformance reported annual revenue of US$11.7 billion, while its founder and former CEO, Daniel Julien, a French national who now lives in Florida, received a base salary of US$2.6 million, a performance-related bonus of up to US$2.6 million, and additional share-based remuneration. Julien stepped down as CEO in March 2026.
Teleperformance’s website boasts that it was named the seventh-best employer in the world last year by Great Place to Work, a UK organisation that describes itself as “the global authority on workplace culture”. OpenDemocracy contacted Great Place to Work to share our findings, but received no response.
Kenya has welcomed “big tech” with open arms
Kenya has welcomed “big tech” with open arms because of the sector’s promise of employment. The country is currently even passing legislation designed to insulate the firms from being drawn into lawsuits filed against outsourcing companies such as Teleperformance. The new laws have so far been unsuccessfully challenged by organisations representing tech workers, such as the Oversight Lab, which argue that they prioritise foreign investment over workers’ rights.
Graphic content
When Ladi Olubunmi arrived at Teleperformance’s office in Nairobi’s Westlands district, she learnt that she would not be working at the front desk, but as a content moderator for TikTok, her brother, Ishaya Anzaki, told openDemocracy. The role required her to spend whole days watching graphic content on the social media platform, filtering out videos that breached its rules. “My sister was self-employed and left Nigeria for a job that she genuinely thought would be good for her. They lied and said she would be working as a receptionist,” Anzaki said over the phone.
Four current and former Teleperformance employees told openDemocracy of similar experiences. One showed us a letter offering them a job as a customer service representative, which they said followed a successful interview for that position. A subsequent letter then informed them that they were being “transferred” to content moderation. By this point, the former employee said they felt unable to quit because they needed the money and feared they would not find another job quickly.
The same former employee said they were aware of other colleagues who had been recruited in a similar manner, while another told openDemocracy that the same thing had happened to him. Two other content moderators at the company said that, although they had applied for content moderation roles, they knew of colleagues who felt they had been deceived with fake job offers. They believed that Olubunmi’s experience was consistent with wider recruitment practices at Teleperformance’s Nairobi office. openDemocracy obtained documents confirming at least one case in which a worker was transferred from a customer service position to a content moderator role. The worker said the transfer was made under pressure.
The company said it clearly briefed employees
In a written statement to openDemocracy, Teleperformance denied using fake jobs to recruit content moderators, saying that throughout “all stages of the interview and hiring process at TP (Teleperformance) in Kenya, employees are clearly briefed on their job specifications”. Referring to claims made by Olubunmi’s brother, it added: “TP in Kenya has never advertised or recruited expatriates for a receptionist position.”
Illegal
Not only was Olubunmi’s job not what she expected, Anzaki told openDemocracy, but she also discovered on arrival in Kenya that she was expected to perform it without the required legal documentation. Foreign nationals employed in Kenya need work permits costing 500,000 Kenyan shillings (close to US$4,000), which are typically paid for by the employer. Those awaiting approval of their permits can obtain a “Special Pass”, an interim measure that allows them to work in the country for six months. When Olubunmi arrived in Nairobi, she had neither. By the time her one-year work permit was eventually granted, she had already been working illegally in Kenya for six months. When it expired, Teleperformance failed to renew it despite her repeated requests, her brother said.
Ten other current and former Teleperformance content moderators told openDemocracy that they had worked at the company illegally, despite repeatedly asking management to secure valid work permits for them. Abubakar Yusuf, a Nigerian national who worked at the company from 2022 to 2024, said he received his permit only 16 months after his start date. Omar*, another Nigerian former content moderator, said he started work at the Nairobi office in 2022 but did not receive his work permit until September 2025. He left Teleperformance the following month. “People have worked for almost three years now without permits,” Omar said.
When openDemocracy examined workers’ passports, we found a pattern of employees entering Kenya on two-month visitor visas and remaining in the country in the expectation that Teleperformance would regularise their immigration status.
Kenya’s Immigration Service said it would investigate the matter
Records obtained by Kenya’s Directorate of Immigration Services and seen by openDemocracy indicated significant discrepancies in Ladi Olubunmi’s residence status. According to the DIS, the company also failed to inform the directorate of her death. “If you are telling us Olubunmi really died, the company should have notified us of this,” said Wanda Odhiambo, then director of enforcement and compliance at the directorate, in an interview in January this year. Odhiambo added that his office would investigate the matter, saying it was “aware of allegations” that Teleperformance workers did not have the requisite permits and that the company had allegedly falsified some permits. He said his office was conducting “an in-depth inquiry” and had asked the company to provide all the necessary information required to enable the directorate to take “fair administrative action”.
However, Odhiambo has since left the directorate. OpenDemocracy contacted the DIS to ask whether the investigation is still ongoing, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Teleperformance denied that some employees work without permits. It said that it “complies with all immigration requirements and provides all necessary support to expat employees” to obtain the correct documentation. “All expatriate applications for work permits are either in process or approved,” the company’s spokesperson said. The company further insisted that it expects “full compliance with applicable immigration and employment requirements” and “does not condone falsification of documents or records”. Where questions arise, the spokesperson said, “we cooperate with the relevant authorities through appropriate formal processes”.
Mental health
Content moderators in Teleperformance’s Nairobi office typically work between 45 and 48 hours a week over five days, with shifts scheduled across a “24/7 environment”, according to employment contracts reviewed by openDemocracy. Appointment letters also seen by openDemocracy reveal that workers like Olubunmi are typically paid about 50,000 Kenyan shillings a month, less than US$400 and 30% below the country’s average monthly salary. Current and former moderators told us they are allowed one-time 30-minute lunch break each day – with disciplinary sanctions, including warnings or even dismissal, for those whose breaks overrun. They also receive one additional 30-minute weekly “wellness break” for “recreational and relaxational purposes”.
Spending long days viewing horrific content took a toll on Olubunmi, her brother said. She told her family that her mental health was suffering. Her case is not an isolated one: a recent study of 160 content moderators at an unnamed international company found that just over a quarter “demonstrated moderate to severe psychological distress from viewing toxic online material”, while a third reported experiencing low wellbeing. Olubunmi’s family said she told them that Teleperformance did not provide employees with the necessary mental health support. This was echoed by 10 current and former content moderators at the company, who said the counselling sessions offered by the firm were neither adequate nor confidential.
One former employee, who spoke to openDemocracy on condition of anonymity because they still worked at Teleperformance at the time of the interview, said management discouraged them from “discussing the nature” of their work with counsellors, which they felt limited the help they could receive. The employee also said that information shared confidentially with counsellors would make its way back to supervisors, who would use it to mock and humiliate them in front of colleagues. Five other moderators said they had experienced similar treatment.
The company rejected these claims, telling openDemocracy that its wellness programme prioritises employee welfare.
Homesick
As her mental health worsened, Olubunmi became increasingly homesick. At the end of 2024, she asked permission to return to Nigeria for Christmas to see her family, her brother said. Employment contracts seen by openDemocracy state that staff are entitled to 21 days of holiday a year. Her brother, however, said that a human resources executive at the firm told Olubunmi that she would not be able to leave the country because of her status as an undocumented worker, meaning she could be arrested and blacklisted from re-entering Kenya. Abubakar Yusuf, the Nigerian former employee who said he worked at Teleperformance for 16 months without a permit, told openDemocracy that a senior HR officer at the company similarly told him that he could not return home because he would not be able to re-enter Kenya.
Nigerian workers protested outside the company’s office
A year before her request to visit home was declined, in November 2023, Olubunmi had rallied her fellow Nigerian colleagues to protest outside Teleperformance’s Nairobi office “against the company’s refusal to provide them with work permits”, according to Yusuf, who took part in the protest. The demonstration came days after two of their Nigerian colleagues were arrested and detained for not having valid documentation. Yusuf said the protesters called off their demonstration after a senior HR official promised to secure permits for employees.
Yet by December 2024, Olubunmi still did not have a permit. The HR executive’s warnings succeeded in preventing her from going home. She never saw her family again. Anzaki said his sister’s fiancé eventually broke off their engagement, frustrated that she could not travel to see him. Desperate to leave Nairobi, Olubunmi began shipping her belongings to Nigeria little by little, preparing for the day she would muster the courage to risk immigration scrutiny. But she died before she could carry out the plan.
No ceremony
Even in death, Olubunmi’s rights were restricted by her lack of a work permit. Had she died in her homeland, she would have received the traditional rites of her Hausa people, with her younger relatives singing and dancing around her coffin on the eve of her burial. The following day, she would have been laid to rest in her favourite clothes, with her extended family spending the week in mourning at the family home. But because she was in Kenya illegally, albeit through no fault of her own, her body could not easily be repatriated.
On 17 April, she was buried unceremoniously in a public cemetery chosen by Teleperformance, after a funeral attended by her colleagues and her brothers, Anzaki and Paul, who had flown to Kenya the day before. “She fought so hard to go back home and rebuild her life, but Teleperformance wouldn’t renew her work permit,” a coworker told openDemocracy, adding that “she should have spent her last moments surrounded by family, but instead she died alone and far away from home.”
In an email to Anzaki sent the day after Olubunmi’s body was found, Teleperformance’s vice-president of people operations in Kenya and Nigeria, Santanu Basu, said her death had been “sudden”, and that preliminary police investigations indicated that she had “died of natural causes”. Yet, more than a year later, the police have still not released her death certificate or post-mortem results, despite promising that both would be ready within four weeks of her burial. The Kenyan police offered no explanation for the delay when openDemocracy contacted them for comment.
“Unbothered”
Content moderators at Teleperformance have told openDemocracy that they feel they have been failed by both Kenyan and Nigerian government officials. According to Omar*, the Nigerian national who has worked at Teleperformance without a permit since 2022, “the Kenyan government is aware of Teleperformance’s exploitation but remains unbothered.” Regarding Nigeria’s responsibility towards its citizens, openDemocracy obtained a letter that another undocumented Nigerian employee hand-delivered to the Nigerian High Commission in Nairobi eight months before Olubunmi’s death. The letter, which bears the commission’s stamp confirming receipt and is dated 19 June 2024, explains that the workers are being employed illegally and asks the commission for help.
“They knowingly came here illegally”, the Nigerian official said
Sonia Odubome, a consular official at the commission, denied having received the letter, saying the commission became aware that Nigerians were allegedly working for Teleperformance illegally only after Olubunmi’s death. Odubome sought to place the blame on the workers for being in the country illegally. “They knowingly came here illegally, signed agreements and kept quiet, enjoying their time in Nairobi until Ladi died and now they are crying that they are being exploited. You can’t tell me Teleperformance had a gun on your head and told you not to talk to anybody – please, none of them are children. Why are they now trying to back out of their contracts?”
Kenya is allowing tech giants based in the Global North to get away with exploiting workers in the name of creating jobs, said Angela Chukunzira of Siasa Place, a Kenyan civic-tech organisation. Chukunzira believes improvements to labour laws may be won by building empathy among the public, holding the state accountable and strengthening worker power. “I’m not saying we can solve this problem overnight, but understanding people’s power is so important. We are the majority.”
1. OpenDemocracy reached out to TikTok with our findings, but the company did not wish to provide a statement. According to its latest Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, TikTok used automated technology to detect and remove 99.3% of the 12 million videos taken down across sub-Saharan Africa during the fourth quarter of 2025. Videos appear to be flagged for review by a content moderator only when the automated system cannot determine whether they violate its guidelines.
Read the original story on openDemocracy.net.
