The lure of a better life drives thousands of Kenyans to the Gulf and other Arab states each year, armed with hopes of greener pastures and dreams of returning home to a brighter future.
For many, the promise of a steady income and the chance to escape economic hardship at home is irresistible.
Yet, what awaits them in these foreign lands often falls far short of the rosy picture painted by recruitment agents.
Stories of abuse, exploitation and unimaginable suffering have emerged from the Gulf with victims’ families back home caught in an unrelenting cycle of worry and despair.
Mary Wangare, 26, is among the latest victims.
She left Kenya to work as a domestic worker in the Arab Republic of Egypt hoping to improve her family's fortunes. After three years of hard work, Wangare faced an ordeal when she asked to leave her employer.
Wangare had shared her intention to leave her employer where she had worked diligently for three years. However, she expressed uncertainty about how to break the news to her boss.
“She was supposed to go for her two days off and she didn’t plan to return. But that was the beginning of her troubles. Her phone was switched off that night,” Ms Wambui told Nation.Africa in an interview in her Pipeline home in Nakuru.
Days later, Wangare called her mother, sounding distressed.
She had not eaten for two days according to her mother. Her employer had been threatening her and was refusing to pay her pending salary.
Wangare revealed that she had been falsely accused of theft and was being pressured to return to work.
“She told me she received a threatening message from her boss. Part of it read that she would be accused of stealing. I told her to report the matter to the embassy, which she did,” Wambui recalls.
But that night, her phone went silent again.
The next day her sister who also lives in Egypt informed the family that Wangare had gone missing after unknown assailants broke into her house, assaulted her, and took her away.
Wambui says she told her other daughter to report the matter and she also attempted to file a similar report at Nakuru’s Central Police Station.
“Unfortunately, they told me the matter is not under their jurisdiction and advised me to report it to the embassy, which I reiterated to my family in Nairobi,” she said.
Interestingly, the embassy said that that was the third person to report the same matter and that they would give the families feedback if they heard anything.
Wangare, the third in a family of five children, is the family’s breadwinner.
“She disappeared for three days. Later we were told she was arrested and taken to court. She was charged with stealing gold, jewelleries and cash. What disturbs me is all information I am receiving is hearsay and no one has actually seen her. I have been told that she needs a lawyer in Cairo. I want her safety guaranteed and want her set free,” she said
“I want her back home. She has been tortured enough. I just want to set my eyes on my daughter,” she added.
For Mary Wanjiru, 34, a trip to Saudi Arabia on April 22, 2021 to work as a domestic worker earning Sh29,000 per month ended in heartbreak and permanent disability.
She left her home in Jawatho village, Nakuru County, in search of better opportunities.
But two months into her job, her employer turned abusive.
She was forced to cut communication with family members, friends and relatives since she could not afford to call.
“I wasn’t paid my first salary. When I asked, they said they had spent a lot on the recruitment agency,” Wanjiru said.
After persistent demands, she was paid and she sent some money to her family saving the rest for her dream business.
But one fateful morning on June 17, 2021, Wanjiru’s employer forced her into a prayer session.
When she declined, he pushed her from a two-story building and she landed on a rock, breaking her spinal cord.
“At the hospital, I was forced to sign documents without knowing what they meant. Later, I was told a court where the criminal case had been filed had withdrawn my case because when summoned to court, my employer maintained that I sustained the injuries while trying to escape,” Wanjiru explained.
Her plight came to light after sympathetic locals recorded a video of her in a hospital bed, which circulated online.
Kenyan agents assisted in her return to their Jawatho home in Nakuru where she now lives with her sister and depends on well-wishers for survival.
“I wanted to change my family’s life but now I’m in a wheelchair relying on others,” said the returnee.
“My life is ruined. I have never heard anything from the agents. My life changed forever since then.”
Sharon Chebet, 33, Eunice Achieng, Judy Adhiambo, Margret Ruguru, 29, are among dozens of women who were not lucky as they lost their life in the gulf countries.
Chebet , from Irongo village in Kuresoi South Sub-county, left for Saudi Arabia in May 2022.
She frequently updated her family on her well-being until August 2024, when she informed them she had been arrested.
Three weeks later, the family learned she had died in a road accident.
As for Ruguru, she travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2021. On March 6, 2022, she made a distress call to her family saying her employer had threatened her life over a missing TV remote. That was the last they heard of her.
Seven months later, her lifeless body was found in a morgue.
“The death report said she died on March 6 but we were never told the cause of death,” said a family member. Like many such cases, the lack of transparency from the host countries leaves families in anguish.
Achieng travelled to Saudi Arabia in July 2022 for domestic work. In August the same year, she called her mother saying her host was mistreating her and she needed to be rescued. That was the last time she was heard from. Since then, her family clung to the hope that after her two-year contract was over, she would come back home. But in June this year, they learnt that she died around August 2022.
Adhiambo died under unclear circumstances on November 22 last year in Saudi Arabia where she had travelled for domestic work.
The families were left to find out the truth for themselves. And with the help of well-wishers, the families brought the bodies back for burial.
But even as cases of Kenyans dying while working as domestic helpers in the Gulf continue to emerge, young women desperate for work are still finding their way there.
When he appeared before the Senate on July 10, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said that at least 316 Kenyans have lost their lives in Gulf countries in the past 2 years, with most deaths – 166 – recorded in Saudi Arabia.
He said the data, which covered 2022 to mid this year, showed that 58 Kenyans died in Qatar, 51 in the United Arabs Emirates, 25 in Iraq, 10 in Bahrain and six in Kuwait.
