Underpaid. Under-trained. Undervalued. The lot of a porter on Mt Kilimanjaro

Letter from Tanzania  by Rick Crouch

Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world.  and each day thousands of  local men  seek employment as porters  and each day a few are picked from the hopefuls hanging around the park gates. This situation allows  unscrupulous employers to undercut attempts by porters to establish a minimum wage and for profits to be raised at the expense of proper porter clothing shelter and food.

In 2005 the press in the Industrialised World reported the deaths of three Americans on Kilimanjaro; this same free press failed to note that, in the same incident, one porter also died and another eleven were injured. One so badly as to require the amputation of a leg and the end to any hopes of employment on the mountain - this in a country without a Social Security System.

Some 250 years after Wilberforce and Macauley called for an end to African slavery it still seems that African porters are assumed to be of little value and to have less feelings. Within Tanzania the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project  is attempting to establish porters' rights and working conditions. From outside the country we can all help by trying to persuade potential visitors to use companies who comply with an ethical policy of decent clothing, shelter, food and wages. Anyone booking a trip with a travel agency should ask about the companies porter policy before booking.