Two families in Mombasa have asked the government to intervene in the cases concerning their relatives stranded in Saudi Arabia, where they went to work as domestic workers.
Hamza Thoya, a father of three, said his wife Leah Mwaka is sick from beatings from her bosses who have now withheld her savings and travel documents.
Mwaka, he said, has survived several attempts of murder by her bosses.
He said his wife travelled to Saudi Arabia through a Nairobi-based Efran Agencies Limited on April 24 to work as a house help in Khamis Mushait town.
He said upon her arrival, she worked for two months and everything seemed to be well.
However, after the first two months, the employer started harassing her by beating her.
When she reported to her agent's office in Saudi Arabia, she was dismissed.
Upon knowing that Mwaka had reported him, the boss locked her in an outside room in the compound, where she was denied basic needs.
One day, as fate would have it, she managed to sneak out and ran to the nearest police station for help.
At the police station, she was taken for deportation, but was returned to her agent's office.
"At the agent's office, rather than assisting my wife they also started beating her," Thoya said.
"She was taken to another house to work and the boss also makes her work even when she is in pain. She works and takes a break after every 30 minutes. She is suffering from a severe backache."
He said the office agents in Saudi Arabia confiscated her phone and took her travelling documents and the money she had saved for the months she had worked there.
Thoya is seeking intervention from the government of Kenya and the Saudi Arabia embassy in Nairobi to help his wife come back home.
"Let her come we raise our three kids together as her quest for looking for greener pastures seems to have failed her," he said.
Thoya has also written to the National Employment Authority and the Foreign Affairs ministry in Nairobi, but he has not gotten any feedback yet.
"I ask the government to bring my wife back before she dies and also revoke the license of the employment company that contracted her because they are aware of my wife's plight but are not doing anything," he said.
Our calls and texts to Efran Agencies Limited went unanswered.
Meanwhile, Zeina Hussein, the mother of 25-year-old Kasha Bakari is also appealing to the government of Kenya to repatriate her daughter who is being mistreated in Saudi Arabia.
Bakari was contracted by Asali Commercial Agency as a house help in Saudi Arabia.
She travelled to the Middle East country on August 10 this year and after a few days, she started complaining of sexual assault by her employer.
The mother said that Bakari complained of being touched in her private parts by her boss. She also said her boss invades her privacy by entering her room at night and when she is alone.
Besides the sexual overtures by her employer, Bakari developed a strange disease that makes her bleed from her private parts when she is agitated. Bakari reported the condition to her boss but she was told that she has demons.
She is yet to get any treatment. The mother has raised the issue with the agent who took her daughter to Saudi Arabia, and the agent has asked the mother to raise part of the air ticket fee before she can facilitate her daughter's return.
"At first she was adamant that I first pay her Sh150, 000– the cost she claimed she incurred in facilitating her travel and logistics to Saudi Arabia before she starts the process of bringing my child home," the mother said.
"But after I reported the case to the National Employment Authority, she said I raise Sh30, 000 and she will chip in with Sh15,000 to pay for the daughter's air ticket."
Bakari's mother said she is poor and cannot raise the money requested by the agent. She is appealing for help so that her daughter can be brought to the country and get medication.
Thoya and Bakari's mother have also sought the intervention of Muslims for Human Rights, a Coast-based human rights organisation.
Francis Auma, Muhuri's rapid response officer, said the cases of mistreatment and deaths of Kenyans who work in Saudi Arabia are rampant.
In the last two months, Auma said, the organisation has received seven reports of Kenyan domestic workers who are suffering at the hands of their employers in Saudi Arabia.
The employment agencies that took them there have ignored them, he said.
"I am appealing to the government of Kenya to suspend the immigration of domestic workers, particularly to Saudi Arabia, until order and human dignity is restored and assured for our fellow citizens," Auma said.
The human rights officer-cum activist said others even die mysteriously while working in Saudi Arabia and when the corpses are brought, no postmortem is done to ascertain the causes of the death.
"This is an alarming trend and the government must move fast to stop this human trafficking kind of business," he said.
(edited by Amol Awuor)
