Lucia Nekesa thought her life would change for the better when an agent told her he could secure her a lucrative job in Qatar as a domestic worker.
But she found herself in Iraq, working for different bosses in the war-torn country.
In a video plea for help, Nekesa says her health has deteriorated because of frequent beatings ostensibly for being lazy.
“I am bleeding a lot. I have tried taking medication but they do not work,” she says.
The 40-year-old mother of five is now appealing for help from President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Her husband Gilbert Oduor, 51, says she travelled in November last year.
“For the first two to three months, she did not communicate. I thought it was network issues and that she was trying to find a line which she could use,” Oduor said.
When she finally communicated, she revealed she was in Iraq, throwing her family into shock and then panic.
“We tried in vain to reach out to the agent who took her there but he has been avoiding us,” Oduor said.
Nekesa says her agent in Iraq makes her work for different people as a domestic worker.
She says she is sometimes locked in the bathroom for up to three days with two meals a day.
“They bring breakfast at 1pm and lunch at 5pm while I'm the bathroom,” she said.
Nekesa’s mother Risper Nafula, 65, said she has been traumatised by her daughter’s ordeal.
She is now even afraid to talk to her due to the emotional pain she gets when she listens to her story.
“I cannot speak to her. She speaks to her sisters, who tell me what is going on,” she told journalists at the Haki Africa offices in Mombasa.
The family stays in Maweni area in Nyali constituency.
Nekesa and Oduor have five children aged between nine and 20.
Haki Africa rapid response officer Mathias Shipeta said fake recruitment agents are increasingly taking advantage of the desperation of job seekers to traffic people.
“When you take a Kenyan to Iraq for a commission, what are you doing? It is like you are sacrificing that Kenyan,” said Shipeta.
He called on the government to rein in on all briefcase recruitment agencies.
Shipeta urged Kenyans to use the right channels when travelling abroad for work.
“The business is so lucrative that now agents in the Middle East travel to Kenya to recruit people into slavery themselves. The government has to double their efforts to protect Kenyan migrant workers,” he said.
Nekesa is just one of the thousands of Kenyans being trafficked without knowing they would become slaves.
Trace Kenya and the International Organization for Migration have identified the Coast region as a trafficking hotspot.
Kenya is a source, transit point and destination for both labour and sexual exploitation according to IOM.
“That is a key concern not just for Kenya itself but also for the international community,” IOM’s Romina Santa Clara said.
Trace Kenya program coordinator Malath Ochieng said low literacy levels contribute to the vulnerability of potential victims.
(edited by O. Owino)
