This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
On August 13, 2019, a vernacular TV station aired a report on Kenyan women domestic workers, highlighting their experiences in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia.
Many domestic workers in countries such as Lebanon, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia responded to the report, sharing their stories on social media. This could indicate that these workers have access to their mobile phones and that their rights are being respected.
However, in recent years, stories of women returning to Kenya with harrowing tales of torture, sexual, and physical abuse in the Middle East have been a constant feature in the media. Reports of women returning home in coffins due to torture, especially in Saudi Arabia, were more prominent from around 2014.
Following these reports, the government banned further migrations of domestic workers to Saudi Arabia and signed an agreement with Riyadh to ensure the migrant workers' human rights and dignity were respected. The agreement included measures such as ensuring workers kept their mobile phones round the clock, allowing them to seek help from the Kenyan Embassy and alert their relatives back home.
With the agreement in place, the ban on migration to Saudi Arabia was lifted early this year, and Kenyans are flocking to the country for domestic work, confident that the government will protect them. However, rogue agents and brokers continue to send domestic workers to the Middle East illegally, and the government must remain vigilant in enforcing its new rules.
