Dennis Osadebe
Feith Shimila Murunga says her boss groped, beat and raped her.
Mary Wanjiru Nyambura says she was once thrown from a balcony.
Winfridah Kwamboka by no means even made it again house.
East African leaders and Saudi royals are amongst the ones profiting off a profitable, fatal deal home staff.
March 16, 2025
On any given hour in Kenya, dozens, if now not loads of girls buzz across the Nairobi world airport’s departures branch. They huddle for selfies in indistinguishable T-shirts, discussing how they’ll spend the cash from their brandnew jobs in Saudi Arabia.
Lured through corporate recruiters and inspired through Kenya’s authorities, the ladies have explanation why for optimism. Spend two years in Saudi Arabia as a housekeeper or governess, the sound is going, and you’ll be able to earn enough quantity to assemble a space, teach your youngsters and save for the day.
Date the escape terminal hums with chance, the arrivals branch is the place hope meets grim truth. Hole-cheeked girls go back, incessantly grassland unwell through unpaid wages, beatings, hunger and sexual attack. Some are needful. Others are in coffins.
No less than 274 Kenyan staff, most commonly girls, have died in Saudi Arabia within the week 5 years — an strange determine for a tender paintings pressure doing jobs that, in maximum international locations, are regarded as extraordinarily cover. No less than 55 Kenyan staff died utmost while, two times as many as the former while.
Post-mortem stories are non-transperant and contradictory. They describe girls with proof of shock, together with burns and electrical traumas, all classified herbal deaths. One lady’s reason behind loss of life was once merely “brain dead.” An untold choice of Ugandans have died, too, however their authorities releases refuse information.
There are community who’re intended to offer protection to those girls — authorities officers like Fabian Kyule Muli, vp of the exertions committee in Kenya’s Nationwide Meeting. The tough committee may call for thorough investigations into employee deaths, power the federal government to barter higher protections from Saudi Arabia or move regulations restricting migration till reforms are enacted.
However Mr. Muli, like alternative East African officers, additionally owns a staffing corporate that sends girls to Saudi Arabia. Certainly one of them, Margaret Mutheu Mueni, stated that her Saudi boss had seized her passport, declared that he had “bought” her and incessantly withheld meals. When she known as the staffing company for aid, she stated, an organization consultant informed her, “You can swim across the Red Sea and get yourself back to Kenya.”
In Kenya, Uganda and Saudi Arabia, a Brandnew York Occasions investigation discovered, tough community have incentives to accumulation the current of staff shifting, in spite of frequent abuse. Individuals of the Saudi royal public are primary buyers in businesses that park home staff. Politicians and their relations in Uganda and Kenya personal staffing businesses, too.
The form between their crowd and personal roles every now and then blurs.
Mr. Muli’s exertions committee, as an example, has change into a eminent tonality encouraging staff to advance in another country. The committee has every now and then unacceptable proof of abuse.
Ultimate presen, 4 Ugandan girls in maids’ uniforms despatched a video plea to an assist crew, pronouncing that that they had been detained for 6 months in Saudi Arabia.
“We are exhausted from being held against our will,” one lady stated at the video. The corporate that despatched her in another country is owned through Sedrack Nzaire, an reputable with Uganda’s governing birthday party who’s recognized in Ugandan media because the brother of the president, Yoweri Museveni.
Just about each staffing company refused to respond to questions or left out repeated needs for remark. That incorporates Mr. Muli, Mr. Nzaire and their corporations.
Kenya and Uganda are deep in a yearslong financial droop, and remittances from overseas staff are a vital supply of source of revenue. Even next alternative international locations negotiated offers with Saudi Arabia that assured employee protections, East African international locations neglected alternatives to do the similar, data display.
Kenya’s Fee on Administrative Justice declared in 2022 that worker-protection efforts have been hindered through “interference by politicians who use proxies to operate the agencies.”
Undeterred, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, says he needs to ship as much as part one million staff to Saudi Arabia within the coming years. Certainly one of his manage advisers, Moses Kuria, has owned a staffing company. Mr. Kuria’s brother, a county-level flesh presser, nonetheless does.
A spokesman for Mr. Ruto, Hussein Mohamed, stated that exertions migration benefited the financial system. He stated the federal government was once taking steps to offer protection to staff, together with removing unlicensed recruiting companies which might be much more likely to have shoddy practices. He stated that Mr. Kuria, the presidential abettor, had refuse struggle of passion as a result of he does now not paintings on exertions problems.
In Uganda, recruiting-firm homeowners come with a just lately retired senior police reputable and Maj. Gen. Leopold Kyanda, a former army attaché to america.
Recruiting corporations paintings carefully with Saudi businesses which might be in a similar fashion neatly attached. Descendants of King Faisal had been some of the greatest shareholders in two of the most important businesses. A director of a Saudi authorities human rights board serves as vp of a big staffing company. So does a former internal minister, an Funding Ministry reputable and several other authorities advisers.
In combination, those businesses paint a rosy image of labor in Saudi Arabia. But if issues advance mistaken, households say, the employees are incessantly left to fend for themselves.
A Kenyan housekeeper, Eunice Achieng, known as house in a panic in 2022, pronouncing that her boss had threatened to execute her and throw her in a H2O tank. “She was screaming, ‘Please come save me!’” her mom recalled. Ms. Achieng quickly became up useless in a rooftop H2O tank, her mom stated. Saudi fitness officers stated her frame was once too decomposed to resolve how she died. The Saudi police classified it a “natural death.”
One younger mom jumped from a third-story roof to departure an abusive employer, breaking her again. Some other stated that her boss had raped her and later despatched her house pregnant and needful.
In Uganda, Isiko Moses Waiswa stated that after he realized his spouse had died in Saudi Arabia, her employer there gave him a call: her frame or her $2,800 in wages.
“I told him that whether you send me the money or you don’t send me the money, me, I want the body of my wife,” Mr. Waiswa stated.
A Saudi post-mortem discovered that his spouse, Aisha Meeme, was once emaciated. She had intensive bruising, 3 damaged ribs and what gave the impression to be unfortunate electrocution burns on her ear, hand and toes. The Saudi government declared that she had died of herbal reasons.
More or less part one million Kenyan and Ugandan staff are in Saudi Arabia nowadays, the Saudi authorities says. Maximum of them are girls who cook dinner, blank or take care of youngsters. Newshounds and rights teams, who’ve lengthy publicized employee abuse within the kingdom, have incessantly blamed its patience on archaic Saudi exertions regulations.
The Occasions interviewed greater than 90 staff and public participants of those that died, and exposed one more reason that issues don’t alternate. The use of function pledges, clinical recordsdata and autopsies, journalists connected deaths and accidents to staffing businesses and the community who run them. What turned into cloudless was once that tough community benefit off the device because it exists.
The interviews and paperwork divulge a device that treats girls like family items — purchased, bought and discarded. Some corporate web pages have an “add to cart” button after to pictures of staff. One advertises “Kenyan maids for sale.”
A spokesman for the human assets ministry in Saudi Arabia stated it had taken steps to offer protection to staff. “Any form of exploitation or abuse of domestic workers is entirely unacceptable, and allegations of such behavior are thoroughly investigated,” the spokesman, Mike Goldstein, wrote in an e mail.
He stated the federal government had raised fines for abuse and made it more straightforward for staff to abandon. He stated home laborers had been capped at 10-hour workdays and had been assured one hour off consistent with age. He stated the federal government now calls for employers to pay their maids via an internet device and can one hour monitor community who time and again violate exertions regulations.
“Workers have multiple ways to report abuse, unpaid wages or contract violations, including hotlines, digital platforms and direct complaint mechanisms,” he stated.
However Milton Turyasiima, an associate commissioner with the Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Hard work and Social Building, stated that abuse remained rampant.
“We get complaints on a daily basis,” he stated.
Promoting a Dream
Recruiters fan out throughout East Africa, from impoverished hilltop villages to the cinder restrain neighborhoods of Nairobi and Kampala, the Ugandan capital.
They seek for community determined, and enthusiastic, enough quantity to let fall their households for low-paying jobs in a rustic the place they have no idea the local language. Folk like Faridah Nassanga, a thin lady with a heat however isolated breeze.
“We are really poor,” Ms. Nassanga stated, sitting outdoor her one-room concrete house in Kampala. Foods are cooked on a propane burner within the alley beside a trickling sewage gutter. She stocks a triple-decker bunk mattress together with her mom and youngsters.
Ms. Nassanga stated a chum presented her in 2019 to an agent from Marphie Global Recruitment Company, whose co-owner, Henry Tukahirwa, just lately retired as one among Uganda’s highest-ranking law enforcement officials. Ms. Nassanga assuredly to travel to Saudi Arabia for a role paying about $200 a presen.
She discovered her home tasks activity as delightful as recruiters had promised. She had her personal room. The girl she labored for every now and then even helped with chores.
Later one hour, she stated, her boss’s husband walked into her room and raped her. Later on, she stated, he kicked and slapped her. He threw her undies at her as she retreated to the kitchen, Ms. Nassanga stated.
When she turned into pregnant, Ms. Nassanga’s boss accused her of dozing with the husband. The Saudi public put her on a airplane again to Uganda, stated Abdallah Kayonde, who runs a legal-aid crew that is making an attempt to get repayment for her.
Ms. Nassanga is aware of her employer’s title however now not her telephone quantity. The one data she has are from the recruiting company.
Ruth Karungi, who owns the company together with her husband, the retired police reputable, stated that after Ms. Nassanga confirmed up on the administrative center with an toddler, the corporate contacted the Saudi spouse company, which didn’t reply.
The corporate later notified the Saudi Embassy. “We trusted that they would address the case through the proper diplomatic channels,” Ms. Karungi stated through e mail.
She stated she didn’t know if somebody had adopted up.
Now, Ms. Nassanga is again sharing a one-room house together with her mom, her two used youngsters and her infant — a boy with a particularly other complexion and hair from his siblings.
‘An Important Destination Country’
Saudi Arabia has a salary hierarchy for overseas staff, with East Africans related the base at about $200 to $250 a presen.
Over time, some international locations have fought for higher wages and protections for his or her staff. The Philippines, as an example, negotiated a do business in with Saudi Arabia in 2012 that raised wages.
That despatched staffing businesses in search of inexpensive exertions somewhere else.
Few Ugandan staff arrived within the kingdom in 2017, Ugandan authorities information display. 5 years upcoming, the quantity was once 85,928.
African governments stood to get pleasure from remittances. Mr. Muli’s committee known as on Kenya in 2019 to “embark on a rigorous campaign to market Saudi Arabia as an important destination country for foreign employment.”
“The current notion that foreign workers in Saudi Arabia go through suffering” wanted “to be corrected,” the committee added.
Mwanakombo Ngao was once hospitalized in a psychological establishment next returning house. She has refuse recollection of what came about in Saudi Arabia.
Esther Kerubo Moranga stated her Saudi boss abused her. Now, she says, her uncle beats her for returning house with out cash.
Josephine Uchi says she labored a difficult home tasks activity presen additionally taking care of a Saudi public of 12. She was once allowed 4 hours of bliss an evening.
The African international locations grant a “new and lower-cost services market,” one among Saudi Arabia’s greatest staffing businesses, Maharah Human Assets Corporate, wrote in 2019.
A few of King Faisal’s descendants, via a retaining corporate, had been notable shareholders in each Maharah and in some other primary staffing company, Saudi Manpower Answers Corporate, or Smasco.
Al Mawarid, but some other fat staffing corporate, additionally has deep authorities ties. Its chairman, Ahmad al-Rakban, was once govt director of management for the Saudi Nationwide Safeguard. The eminent govt, Riyadh al-Romaizan, is chairman of a government-backed trade council. Tariq al-Awaji, a former manage reputable on the Inside Ministry, is a corporation director. Some other board member, till just lately, was once an reputable within the Funding Ministry.
Lately, Al Mawarid has paid about $4 million to obtain staff from Macro Manpower, the agency owned through Mr. Nzaire, the brother of Uganda’s president, company filings display.
(East African recruiting businesses construct cash from per-worker charges from Saudi corporations. The ones corporations, in flip, get charges from community who rent maids.)
Al Mawarid’s eminent govt, Mr. al-Romaizan, declined to respond to questions.
Attacked With Lighten
Mary Nsiimenta, a unmarried mom with fat, tragic sights, wiped clean space for a public with 5 youngsters in Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia. She stated the kids, ages 9 to 18, crash her with a stick and put fade in her sights.
(A number of girls informed The Occasions that they had been assaulted with fade or pressured to soak their arms in it as punishment.)
In step with Ms. Nsiimenta, her employer was once stingy together with her wage. Upcoming she time and again requested to be paid, she stated, the public locked her on a third-story rooftop.
As date dragged on, she felt certain she would die there, she recalled.
“The sun was too much,” she stated. “Hot. No food. I lost control.”
She jumped, touchdown hardened.
“I crawled out like a snake” to the road, she stated. Passers-by introduced her to a health facility the place, clinical data display, docs repaired her backbone. She reported the abuse to docs and the police, she stated, however they informed her to go back to paintings.
Ms. Nsiimenta refused, and the Saudi placement company returned her to Uganda in 2023. In persistent ache and incontinent, she can’t paintings. Buddies and relations are elevating her youngsters. “My life is destroyed,” she stated.
Buying and selling Abuse for a Form of Jail
Saudi legislation says that, when a employee must advance house, an employer, recruiter or the Saudi authorities is obligated to pay.
“Under no circumstances does a worker bear any financial responsibility for repatriation,” wrote Mr. Goldstein, the Saudi ministry spokesman.
However staff and worker-rights advocates say that laborers are incessantly pressured to pay. The ones with out cash will also be detained.
As a result of visas are connect to function, staff who let fall their jobs can lose their authorized condition. To aid deal with that, the Saudi authorities paid an organization, Sakan, to grant housing and authorized help to overseas staff in bother.
Hannah Njeri Miriam ended up at a Sakan heart in 2022, a couple of while next she left Kenya’s Rift Valley for Saudi Arabia.
Ms. Miriam’s employer fired her next a dispute. Jobless and homeless, Sakan was once the one park to advance. As soon as there, in line with her public, the group of workers stated she may let fall provided that she paid about $300 for her walk.
She known as house, pronouncing she was once being mistreated and underfed. No one may come up with the money for to aid. The Kenyan company that had despatched her in another country had long gone into bankruptcy.
In the end, her public were given a choice from some other lady on the heart. She stated Ms. Miriam had attempted to departure via an air-conditioning opening however had slipped and fallen two tales. A forensic document stated that Ms. Miriam had died of head wounds. The Saudi police upcoming stated that she died of “congestive cardiac and respiratory failure.” Sakan’s chairman declined to remark.
Mr. Goldstein, the Saudi ministry spokesman, declined to touch upon person deaths however stated that each case was once completely investigated. He didn’t remark at the inconsistencies between autopsies and police stories and would now not say what number of community have been arrested or prosecuted in exertions instances.
Mr. Goldstein stated the federal government banned investment Sakan in 2023. Now, he stated, it can pay the recruiting company Smasco to run worker-assistance facilities.
3 Kenyan girls said to The Occasions from within a Smasco heart. The ladies, who spoke at the situation of anonymity for concern of retaliation, stated that they might now not advance house except they paid about $400. The corporate didn’t reply to needs for remark.
Returning House
As migration to Saudi Arabia surged, stories of deaths and accidents unfold throughout East Africa. Our bodies started arriving. Every fable introduced brandnew outrage.
Folk will have to now not had been shocked. The leaders of Kenya and Uganda had enough threat of abuse, but they signed oaths with Saudi Arabia that lacked protections that alternative leaders demanded.
The Philippines do business in in 2012, as an example, assured a $400 per 30 days minimal salary, get entry to to depot accounts and a agreement that staff’ passports would now not be confiscated.
Kenya to begin with demanded homogeneous wages, in line with a central authority document, but if Saudi Arabia balked, Kenya assuredly to a do business in in 2015 and not using a minimal salary in any respect.
The treaty contained minute past a agreement to ascertain a committee to observe exertions problems. The fee was once by no means shaped, a central authority document stated.
Mr. Mohamed, the Kenyan president’s spokesman, stated that the federal government upcoming negotiated $225 per 30 days wages. He stated Kenyan staff had been merely now not as very talked-about in Saudi Arabia. “Philippines is able to dictate the price,” he stated.
When Uganda decrease its word with the Saudi authorities, they made refuse point out of a minimal salary. The problem of employee mistreatment was once neatly mentioned on the date. The Saudi ambassador to Uganda even wrote a column in a Ugandan newspaper assailing critics who “offend and abuse the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” through publicizing abuse.
In 2021, a Kenyan Senate committee discovered “deteriorating conditions” in Saudi Arabia and an “increase in distress calls by those alleging torture and mistreatment.” The committee really useful postponing employee transfers.
When Mr. Ruto was once elected president in 2022, even though, the marketing campaign to ship staff in another country intensified. His authorities reached a brandnew Saudi exertions word please see while and not using a salary build up or substantive brandnew protections.
“It’s a cycle of abuse that no one is addressing,” stated Stephanie Marigu, a Kenyan attorney who represents staff.
Now, a couple of instances a presen, rural Kenyans head to Nairobi to pack a coffin from the airport.
Masses of community amassed in September at a village faculty in southwestern Kenya. They paid appreciates to Millicent Moraa Obwocha, who had left her husband and younger son in the back of months previous.
Her employer sexually stressed and assaulted her, her husband, Obuya Simon Areba, stated. Issues were given so wicked utmost summer time, he stated, that she requested her Saudi recruiter to rescue her.
A couple of days upcoming, her husband were given the decision that she was once useless. She was once 24. The Kenyan authorities attributed her loss of life to “nerve issues.”
Her employer, Abdullah Omar Abdul al-Rahman Hailan, stated that Mr. Areba’s account was once “misleading and incorrect” and known as a Occasions reporter “a clown.”
On the funeral, Ms. Obwocha’s frame lay in an clear coffin in a white get dressed and veil.
Beside her was once a six-foot-tall {photograph}. In it, she smiles together with her arms held up in a V. She is status outdoor the airport, brimming with optimism.
