Returning Gulf worker recounts life of hell

It is only God who saw me through.”

That what 33-year-old Francina Magati Henry used more than 10 times in her nine-minute narrative on Thursday of her ordeal in Saudi Arabia.

She is one of the few cases with a  happy ending after suffering two years of hell in the Gulf state.

The mother of three left Kenya in September 2019 for greener pastures in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, where she was to be a domestic worker.

Life was smooth for the first seven months, she sent money home regularly, feeling her decision had paid off.

However, the greener pastures started withering and turning brown as her health started failing.

Her boss had no sympathy, she had to work, healthy or not.

“I can’t talk much. I only thank God I am back,” Magati said,  breaking own in tears.

Domestic disputes were frequent in the house where she first worked.

She did all the house chores, including carrying heavy objects like gas cylinders, a mini-fridge and TV stand from the ground to the sixth storey.

Despite her poor health, her employer always found minor issues over which she would pick a fight.

Magati always slept in the sitting room, mostly on the tiles without a mattress.

“One morning, my boss quarrelled. In the evening, I found she had put money where I slept. I called my broker and told him. He said I should be brought back to the office immediately. That was a bad sign,” Magati said.

In Sauda Arabia, she explained, being labelled a thief is as good as a death sentence, especially for migrant workers.

She believed the money was a set-up. She didn't take it.

She had already undergone a terrifying experience when she was accused of stealing a phone.

The employer ransacked her bags.

“The good thing is they later found the phone in their bedroom. But still they were not satisfied. They came and ransacked my bag a second time and confiscated my phone charger,” Magati said.

She had to borrow her fellow worker’s charger.

When she returned to the recruitment agency’s office, she was sold to four other households.

The boss in the last house was kind and loving to her.

“However, due to my health condition, she said I could not work for her and she returned me to the agency office,” Magati said.

The kind boss told her if she could afford it, she would have flown her back to Kenya.

In hospital, she was told she had a problem with her appendix and blood and she needed surgery.

She refused, insisting she would undergo surgery at home, with family at friends to help her.

They had even predicted her death, Magati said.

“I was told if I died in Saudi Arabia, my body would never be returned to Kenya,” she said sobbing.

At the agency office, where she stayed for more than five months, being beaten several times for ostensibly refusing to work, she was the only one whose processing was delayed.

Others, including Filipinas, were quickly processed and returned to their home countries. Some spent less than two days at the agency offices after reporting problems with their bosses.

Her pay stopped coming after seven months in the country.

All along, every employer told her they would pay her the day she was to return home.

They never did. She was forced to pay for her own air ticket with the help of friends and family back at home.

She said all the bosses owe her at least 1,000 Saudi Arabian riyals (about Sh28,870).

When her time to fly back to Kenya came, the Kenyan agent wanted her to pay him first before he could facilitate her travel.

Happy to be back home after returning on Monday morning, Magati said she will never wish that experience even on her worst enemy.

“It is only God who has seen me through,” she said.

She said she still feels weak and sickly.

In Kenya, she used to work at an EPZ before work stopped.

She then did a welding course and was employed at African Gas and Oil before they were laid off.

“My daughter had to join Form One and I had no money. That is what pushed me to seek greener pastures in Saudi Arabia,” Magati said.

However, she said not all Kenyans go through suffering in Saudi Arabia.

She called on Kenyans to come to the aid of those who call for help while in the Gulf nations.

The Kenyan Embassy in Saudi Arabia should pull up its socks, she said, suggesting it does not.

The embassy has previously defended itself saying most of those who go for greener pastures in the Gulf states do not register with the embassy on arrival, thus making it difficult to monitor their situations.

The Philippines Embassy, Magati said, is very supportive of their citizens and asked the Kenyan embassy to learn from them.

“I got a lot of phone numbers for the embassy to help me, but none did. They either blue-ticked me or kept on referring me to other people,” Magati said.

“I thank Haki Africa so much. Where I am from, it is only God,” she said.

Haki Africa raised the alarm over Magati’s plight in March this year.

The lobby group’s rapid response officer, Mathias Shipeta,  said they are happy Magati is finally back home alive.

He said many other Kenyans who have gone to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations and have been able to help their families back home after being successful there.

Others also go through hardships and suffering but persevere to be able to help their families.

Yet others go there, suffer and are unable to withstand the suffering. They opt out but are blocked from returning.

Others die mysteriously.

“Maybe it is time our government solves the unemployment crisis in this country. Many of those who travel to the Gulf nations are pushed by the hard economic times back home,” Shipeta said.

Magati’s mother, Terezi Mweni, said she had to borrow money from friends and relatives so she could raise her daughter’s airfare.

The Kenyan agent, Mweni said, had asked for Sh20,000 as a token of appreciation for facilitating her daughter’s trip to Saudi Arabia.

“So when  said he said he would raise her air ticket, I highly doubted it,”Mweni said.

She said she had almost lost hope of ever seeing her daughter alive again.

“I thought like many others, my daughter would only return in a coffin,” Mweni.

“I don’t want to hear about that Saudi country any more. I am tired.”

She however said she has forgiven her daughter’s oppressors.

Shipeta said some agents take advantage of the desperation of Kenyan youth. They sending them to Gulf nations, raking in Sh200,000 for every person they send.

He said agents who send Kenyan workers to the Gulf states must be ready to take responsibility for them when they are  abroad.

“The government should monitor Kenyans in those countries, Shipeta said. "When we forward a case to them, they must act with speed to help."

(Edited by V. Graham)