2 hours agoShareSaveMayeni JonesAfrica correspondentShareSaveGetty Images / BBCOn her first day of work, Adau realised she had made a big mistake.”We got our uniforms, not even knowing exactly what we were going to do. From the first day of work we were taken to the drones factory. We stepped in and we saw drones everywhere and people working. Then they took us to our different work stations.”Twenty-three-years-old and originally from South Sudan, Adau says last year she was lured to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, on the promise of a full-time job.She had applied to the Alabuga Start programme, a recruitment scheme targeting 18-to-22-year-old women, mostly from Africa but also increasingly from Latin America and South-East Asia. It promises participants professional training in areas including logistics, catering and hospitality.But the programme has been accused of using deception in its recruitment practices, and of making its young recruits work in dangerous conditions for less pay than advertised. It denies all these allegations but did not deny that some employees were helping to build drones.The Alabuga Start programme (AS) recently made global headlines when South African influencers advertising the programme were accused of promoting human trafficking. The BBC reached out to the implicated influencers and the promoter responsible for connecting them to the programme but none responded to our requests.By some estimates more than 1,000 women have been recruited from across Africa to work in Alabuga’s weapons factories. In August the South African government launched an investigation and warned its citizens not to sign up.Adau has asked the BBC not to use her surname or picture as she does not want to be associated with the programme. She says she first heard about it in 2023. “My friend posted about a scholarship in Russia on their Facebook status. The advert was by the South Sudanese Ministry of Higher Education,” she says.Supplied to the BBCShe reached out to the organisers through WhatsApp.”They asked me to fill out a form with my name, age and why I wanted to join Alabuga. And then they also asked me to pick three fields I wanted to work in.”Adau says she picked being a tower-crane operator as her first choice. She had always been into technology and had even travelled abroad once to take part in a robotics competition.”I wanted to work in fields that are not normally done by women. It is very hard for a woman to come across fields like tower-crane operation, especially within my country.”The application took a year because of the lengthy visa process.Supplied to the BBCIn March last year, she finally made it to Russia.”When I first got there it was very cold, I hated it. We travelled towards the end of winter. The second we stepped out of the airport, it was freezing cold.”But driving into the Alabuga Special Zone left her with a good first impression.”I was very impressed. It was everything that I thought it was [going to be]. I saw a lot of factories, cars and agricultural companies.”Adau had three months of language classes before starting work in July. That was when things started to go downhill.She says she and the other participants were not given a choice as to whether to work in the drone factory. They had signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) so could not even discuss their work with their families.”We all had a lot of questions. We had all signed up to work in technical fields -production operation, logistics, tower-crane operator – but we all ended up working in the drone factory.”Alabuga denies using deception to recruit workers. “All the fields in which our participants work are listed on our website,” it said in response to our questions.The workers were not allowed to take pictures inside the facility, but the BBC showed Adau footage broadcast on Russian state-owned TV station RT of a factory in Alabuga making Iranian Shahed 136 drones. She confirmed to us that this was where she worked.”The reality of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone is that it’s a war production facility,” says Spencer Faragasso from the Institute For Science And International Security.”Russia has openly admitted that they are producing and building Shahed 136 drones there in videos that they released publicly. They boast about the site. They boast about its accomplishments.”Spencer says that like Adau, many of the women they interviewed who worked in the programme said they had no idea they would be building weapons.”On the surface, this is an amazing opportunity for many of these women to see the world, to gain work experience and to earn a living wage. But, in reality, when they’re brought to Alabuga, they have a harsh awakening that these promises are not kept, and the reality of their work is far different from what they’re promised.”Adau says she knew straight away that she could not keep working at the factory.”It all started clicking: all the lies that we have been told since the time of application. I felt like I couldn’t work around people who are lying to me about those things. And I wanted to do more with my life than work in a drone factory.”She handed in her notice but was told the notice period was two weeks, during which she had to work. During that time she painted the outer casing of the drones with che …
