Joan Cheruto, 38, a mother of four, is reported to have died in the city of Riyadh, and her body is yet to arrive at her home in Chepterit on the outskirts of Kapsabet town for burial.
According to an autopsy report shared with her family, Cheruto died on August 17 of “cardiac arrest”.
Her brother Nicholas Kimutai said the family was thrown into shock when they received a short text message from her employer in Riyadh that only read, “Joan died.”
Cheruto, who used to be a trader at Chepterit market, was full of life, selling fresh foods and occasionally cooked chips to support her children in school.
Towards the third quarter of 2021, she was approached by “rural agents” of a domestic workers' recruiting firm based in Ngara, Nairobi.
She was promised heaven if she leaves home and becomes a domestic worker in the oil-rich gulf Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
After being taken through “training” and going through medical check-up, Cheruto was informed that she had qualified and that the firm would facilitate all her travel documentation.
She left her Chepterit home in December 2021 and, on arrival in Riyadh, was linked to her employer, identified as Walaeah Al-Mugheri, who lived in Riyadh Street 1225.
Her Kenyan recruiting agency had linked her to another partner agency based in Riyadh identified as “Ruken Eden Recruitment Agency”, which is based in the Mugherzat district of Riyadh.
She was on a two-year contract and on a monthly salary of 900 SAR (Saudi Riyals), equivalent to about Sh30,000.
Her family says Cheruto was very healthy and always communicated with her children at home.
“She has never failed to send money home every end-month, and she was always communicating on her welfare and to know how the children she had left behind were faring,” Kimutai, her brother, says.
We recently received an audio where she had recorded her voice, making an 'SOS' call to the agent for medical assistance
SUDDEN CHANGE
Cheruto had never reported any form of mistreatment, and she hoped to complete her contract and return home.
However, her family says a week before receiving the sad note from her employer, Cheruto had complained of a kind of “chest pain” and hoped she could get treatment.
“As a family, we are not sure what caused her death. We recently received an audio where she had recorded her voice, making an 'SOS' call to the agent for medical assistance,” Kimutai said.
“The message was unable to reach the agency because the WiFi had been switched off and when it was switched on, apparently my sister had died.”
The family now suspect foul play over her death. However, they are not ready to pursue the matter.
Cheruto's agent has promised to help in the repatriation of her remains for internment, but the slow pace of the process is torturing the family, to whom she was the breadwinner.
“We are not interested in any controversies, we just want the body home,” Kimutai said.
“And my appeal to Kenya's Embassy in Riyadh, Kenyans are suffering and it will be wrong to be part of the slavery on our people.”
MORE AT RISK
In the neighbouring village of Chemare in Chemundu location, another family is in fear after another woman recruited as a domestic in Saudi Arabia stopped communicating with her parents and children.
Florah Jepkorir, 38, a mother of two, last called home on April 30 and her whereabouts remain unknown since then.
Her mother Jane Jepkorir is apprehensive about the fate of her daughter as her phone has been off for five months now.
The family received her last remittance for children's upkeep hours before her phone went off. They suspect it may have been confiscated by her employer.
Kenya is estimated to have about 100,000 citizens working in the oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, most of whom are domestic workers.
Rights groups and labour organisations want the new government of President William Ruto to have a bilateral agreement with the gulf state to protect Kenyans.
Nandi Human Rights Network chairman Rev Simon Nyoros wants life insurance introduced to protect the workers.
In the absence of life insurance for the workers, some are subjected to slavery, and in the event of their demise, the families back at home are left with nothing after the breadwinner dies.
The human rights group believes the agencies are engaged in a sort of “slave trade”, hence the reason why workers are being treated in inhumane conditions.
“We have heard of tens of workers in Saudi Arabia stopping communications with their families at home, others for over 10 years,” Nyoros says.
“No one knows if they are still alive or not. We need urgent action to locate all Kenyans in Saudi Arabia.”
Reports of horror treatments of domestic workers are common. They are compared to the slave trade as employers tell them they were “bought” from agents and could as well be put on sale.
BAN OR CHANGE TERMS
Cases of Kenyan domestic workers being sold off to other employers for as high as $4,000 to $5,000 in Saudi Arabia following disagreement with their employers haves been reported.
“The boss (employers) always threaten to sell one off to another employer, claiming they bought the worker from the agent, hence have absolute power over her. One decides to do anything,” Nyoros says.
The Nandi Human Rights Consortium in Nandi wants the government to issue a moratorium on sending domestic workers to Saudia Arabia until terms and conditions are agreed upon.
These include life and health insurance for the workers, non-confiscation of passports and the right to have their phones in their respective homes.
The “Kafala” system in the hiring of workers has been blamed as the root cause of the problems afflicting the workers.
The system, Nyoros says, is the main issue as the employer, regarded as the sponsor, becomes the sole “owner” as the visa is tied to him.
“It’s like the employee was procured by the sponsor through the agent for an unspecified amount of money. This should be made clear because the amount of money paid to the worker is suspect,” Nyoros said.
