East African Housekeepers Face Rape, Assault and Demise in Saudi Arabia

East African leaders and Saudi royals are amongst these profiting off a profitable, lethal commerce in home employees.

March 16, 2025

On any given day in Kenya, dozens, if not lots of of ladies buzz across the Nairobi worldwide airport’s departures space. They huddle for selfies in matching T-shirts, discussing how they’ll spend the cash from their new jobs in Saudi Arabia.

Lured by firm recruiters and inspired by Kenya’s authorities, the ladies have motive for optimism. Spend two years in Saudi Arabia as a housekeeper or nanny, the pitch goes, and you may earn sufficient to construct a home, educate your youngsters and save for the longer term.

Whereas the departure terminal hums with anticipation, the arrivals space is the place hope meets grim actuality. Hole-cheeked ladies return, often ground down by unpaid wages, beatings, hunger and sexual assault. Some are broke. Others are in coffins.

A minimum of 274 Kenyan employees, largely ladies, have died in Saudi Arabia prior to now 5 years — a rare determine for a younger work power doing jobs that, in most international locations, are thought of extraordinarily secure. A minimum of 55 Kenyan employees died final yr, twice as many because the earlier yr.

Post-mortem reviews are imprecise and contradictory. They describe ladies with proof of trauma, together with burns and electrical shocks, all labeled pure deaths. One lady’s reason for demise was merely “mind useless.” An untold variety of Ugandans have died, too, however their authorities releases no knowledge.

There are people who find themselves supposed to guard these ladies — authorities officers like Fabian Kyule Muli, vice chairman of the labor committee in Kenya’s Nationwide Meeting. The highly effective committee might demand thorough investigations into employee deaths, stress the federal government to barter higher protections from Saudi Arabia or move legal guidelines limiting migration till reforms are enacted.

However Mr. Muli, like different East African officers, additionally owns a staffing firm that sends ladies to Saudi Arabia. Certainly one of them, Margaret Mutheu Mueni, stated that her Saudi boss had seized her passport, declared that he had “purchased” her and continuously withheld meals. When she referred to as the staffing company for assist, she stated, an organization consultant advised her, “You possibly can swim throughout the Crimson Sea and get your self again to Kenya.”

In Kenya, Uganda and Saudi Arabia, a New York Instances investigation discovered, highly effective individuals have incentives to maintain the stream of employees transferring, regardless of widespread abuse. Members of the Saudi royal household are main buyers in companies that place home employees. Politicians and their relations in Uganda and Kenya personal staffing companies, too.

The road between their private and non-private roles typically blurs.

Mr. Muli’s labor committee, for instance, has grow to be a outstanding voice encouraging employees to go abroad. The committee has at instances rejected proof of abuse.

Final month, 4 Ugandan ladies in maids’ uniforms despatched a video plea to an support group, saying that that they had been detained for six months in Saudi Arabia.

“We’re exhausted from being held in opposition to our will,” one lady stated on the video. The corporate that despatched her overseas is owned by Sedrack Nzaire, an official with Uganda’s governing celebration who’s recognized in Ugandan media because the brother of the president, Yoweri Museveni.

Practically each staffing company refused to reply questions or ignored repeated requests for remark. That features Mr. Muli, Mr. Nzaire and their corporations.

Kenya and Uganda are deep in a yearslong economic slump, and remittances from international employees are a major supply of earnings. Even after different international locations negotiated offers with Saudi Arabia that assured employee protections, East African international locations missed alternatives to do the identical, information present.

Kenya’s Fee on Administrative Justice declared in 2022 that worker-protection efforts had been hindered by “interference by politicians who use proxies to function the companies.”

Undeterred, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, says he needs to ship as much as half a million workers to Saudi Arabia within the coming years. Certainly one of his high advisers, Moses Kuria, has owned a staffing company. Mr. Kuria’s brother, a county-level politician, nonetheless does.

A spokesman for Mr. Ruto, Hussein Mohamed, stated that labor migration benefited the economic system. He stated the federal government was taking steps to guard employees, together with hunting down unlicensed recruiting companies which might be extra prone to have shoddy practices. He stated that Mr. Kuria, the presidential adviser, had no battle of curiosity as a result of he doesn’t work on labor points.

In Uganda, recruiting-firm homeowners embody a not too long ago retired senior police official and Maj. Gen. Leopold Kyanda, a former army attaché to the US.

Recruiting corporations work carefully with Saudi companies which might be equally effectively linked. Descendants of King Faisal have been among the many largest shareholders in two of the largest companies. A director of a Saudi authorities human rights board serves as vice chairman of a serious staffing company. So does a former inside minister, an Funding Ministry official and a number of other authorities advisers.

Collectively, these companies paint a rosy image of labor in Saudi Arabia. However when issues go incorrect, households say, the employees are sometimes left to fend for themselves.

A Kenyan housekeeper, Eunice Achieng, referred to as residence in a panic in 2022, saying that her boss had threatened to kill her and throw her in a water tank. “She was screaming, ‘Please come save me!’” her mom recalled. Ms. Achieng quickly turned up useless in a rooftop water tank, her mom stated. Saudi well being officers stated her physique was too decomposed to find out how she died. The Saudi police labeled it a “pure demise.”

One younger mom jumped from a third-story roof to flee an abusive employer, breaking her again. One other stated that her boss had raped her after which despatched her residence pregnant and broke.

In Uganda, Isiko Moses Waiswa stated that when he discovered his spouse had died in Saudi Arabia, her employer there gave him a alternative: her physique or her $2,800 in wages.

“I advised him that whether or not you ship me the cash otherwise you don’t ship me the cash, me, I would like the physique of my spouse,” Mr. Waiswa stated.

A Saudi post-mortem discovered that his spouse, Aisha Meeme, was emaciated. She had in depth bruising, three damaged ribs and what gave the impression to be extreme electrocution burns on her ear, hand and toes. The Saudi authorities declared that she had died of pure causes.

Roughly half 1,000,000 Kenyan and Ugandan employees are in Saudi Arabia right this moment, the Saudi authorities says. Most of them are ladies who cook dinner, clear or care for youngsters. Journalists and rights teams, who’ve long publicized employee abuse in the kingdom, have typically blamed its persistence on archaic Saudi labor legal guidelines.

The Instances interviewed greater than 90 employees and relations of those that died, and uncovered one more reason that issues don’t change. Utilizing employment contracts, medical information and autopsies, reporters linked deaths and accidents to staffing companies and the individuals who run them. What turned clear was that highly effective individuals revenue off the system because it exists.

The interviews and paperwork reveal a system that treats ladies like family items — purchased, offered and discarded. Some firm web sites have an “add to cart” button subsequent to images of employees. One advertises “Kenyan maids on the market.”

A spokesman for the human assets ministry in Saudi Arabia stated it had taken steps to guard employees. “Any type of exploitation or abuse of home employees is fully unacceptable, and allegations of such conduct are completely investigated,” the spokesman, Mike Goldstein, wrote in an e-mail.

He stated the federal government had raised fines for abuse and made it simpler for employees to stop. He stated home laborers have been capped at 10-hour workdays and have been assured at some point off per week. He stated the federal government now requires employers to pay their maids by an internet system and can at some point observe individuals who repeatedly violate labor legal guidelines.

“Staff have a number of methods to report abuse, unpaid wages or contract violations, together with hotlines, digital platforms and direct grievance mechanisms,” he stated.

However Milton Turyasiima, an assistant commissioner with the Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Growth, stated that abuse remained rampant.

“We get complaints each day,” he stated.

Promoting a Dream

Recruiters fan out throughout East Africa, from impoverished hilltop villages to the cinder block neighborhoods of Nairobi and Kampala, the Ugandan capital.

They seek for individuals determined, and impressive, sufficient to depart their households for low-paying jobs in a rustic the place they have no idea the native language. Individuals like Faridah Nassanga, a slim lady with a heat however indifferent air.

“We’re actually poor,” Ms. Nassanga stated, sitting outdoors her one-room concrete residence in Kampala. Meals are cooked on a propane burner within the alley beside a trickling sewage gutter. She shares a triple-decker bunk mattress together with her mom and kids.

Ms. Nassanga stated a good friend launched her in 2019 to an agent from Marphie Worldwide Recruitment Company, whose co-owner, Henry Tukahirwa, not too long ago retired as considered one of Uganda’s highest-ranking cops. Ms. Nassanga agreed to maneuver to Saudi Arabia for a job paying about $200 a month.

She discovered her housekeeping job as nice as recruiters had promised. She had her personal room. The girl she labored for typically even helped with chores.

Then at some point, she stated, her boss’s husband walked into her room and raped her. Afterward, she stated, he kicked and slapped her. He threw her underwear at her as she retreated to the kitchen, Ms. Nassanga stated.

When she turned pregnant, Ms. Nassanga’s boss accused her of sleeping with the husband. The Saudi household put her on a aircraft again to Uganda, stated Abdallah Kayonde, who runs a legal-aid group that’s making an attempt to get compensation for her.

Ms. Nassanga is aware of her employer’s title however not her cellphone quantity. The one information she has are from the recruiting company.

Ruth Karungi, who owns the company together with her husband, the retired police official, stated that when Ms. Nassanga confirmed up on the workplace with an toddler, the corporate contacted the Saudi associate company, which didn’t reply.

The corporate then notified the Saudi Embassy. “We trusted that they might tackle the case by the right diplomatic channels,” Ms. Karungi stated by e-mail.

She stated she didn’t know if anybody had adopted up.

Now, Ms. Nassanga is again sharing a one-room residence together with her mom, her two older youngsters and her toddler — a boy with a notably totally different complexion and hair from his siblings.

‘An Vital Vacation spot Nation’

Saudi Arabia has a wage hierarchy for international employees, with East Africans close to the underside at about $200 to $250 a month.

Through the years, some international locations have fought for higher wages and protections for his or her employees. The Philippines, for instance, negotiated a take care of Saudi Arabia in 2012 that raised wages.

That despatched staffing companies searching for cheaper labor elsewhere.

Few Ugandan employees arrived within the kingdom in 2017, Ugandan authorities knowledge present. 5 years later, the quantity was 85,928.

African governments stood to learn from remittances. Mr. Muli’s committee referred to as on Kenya in 2019 to “embark on a rigorous marketing campaign to market Saudi Arabia as an necessary vacation spot nation for international employment.”

“The present notion that international employees in Saudi Arabia undergo struggling” wanted “to be corrected,” the committee added.

Mwanakombo Ngao was hospitalized in a psychological establishment after returning residence. She has no recollection of what occurred in Saudi Arabia.

The African international locations present a “new and lower-cost companies market,” considered one of Saudi Arabia’s largest staffing companies, Maharah Human Sources Firm, wrote in 2019.

A few of King Faisal’s descendants, by a holding firm, have been necessary shareholders in each Maharah and in one other main staffing company, Saudi Manpower Options Firm, or Smasco.

Al Mawarid, one more large staffing firm, additionally has deep authorities ties. Its chairman, Ahmad al-Rakban, was govt director of administration for the Saudi Nationwide Guard. The chief govt, Riyadh al-Romaizan, is chairman of a government-backed trade council. Tariq al-Awaji, a former high official on the Inside Ministry, is an organization director. One other board member, till not too long ago, was an official within the Funding Ministry.

Lately, Al Mawarid has paid about $4 million to amass employees from Macro Manpower, the agency owned by Mr. Nzaire, the brother of Uganda’s president, company filings present.

(East African recruiting companies make cash from per-worker charges from Saudi corporations. These corporations, in flip, get charges from individuals who rent maids.)

Al Mawarid’s chief govt, Mr. al-Romaizan, declined to reply questions.

Attacked With Bleach

Mary Nsiimenta, a single mom with large, mournful eyes, cleaned home for a household with 5 youngsters in Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia. She stated the youngsters, ages 9 to 18, hit her with a stick and put bleach in her eyes.

(A number of ladies advised The Instances that they have been assaulted with bleach or compelled to soak their arms in it as punishment.)

In accordance with Ms. Nsiimenta, her employer was stingy together with her wage. After she repeatedly requested to be paid, she stated, the household locked her on a third-story rooftop.

As time dragged on, she felt positive she would die there, she recalled.

“The solar was an excessive amount of,” she stated. “Sizzling. No meals. I misplaced management.”

She jumped, touchdown arduous.

“I crawled out like a snake” to the road, she stated. Passers-by took her to a hospital the place, medical information present, docs repaired her backbone. She reported the abuse to docs and the police, she stated, however they advised her to return to work.

Ms. Nsiimenta refused, and the Saudi placement company returned her to Uganda in 2023. In persistent ache and incontinent, she can’t work. Associates and relations are elevating her youngsters. “My life is destroyed,” she stated.

Buying and selling Abuse for a Kind of Jail

Saudi regulation says that, when a employee must go residence, an employer, recruiter or the Saudi authorities is obligated to pay.

“In no way does a employee bear any monetary accountability for repatriation,” wrote Mr. Goldstein, the Saudi ministry spokesman.

However employees and worker-rights advocates say that laborers are sometimes compelled to pay. These with out cash may be detained.

As a result of visas are tied to employment, employees who depart their jobs can lose their authorized standing. To assist tackle that, the Saudi authorities paid an organization, Sakan, to offer housing and authorized help to international employees in hassle.

Hannah Njeri Miriam ended up at a Sakan middle in 2022, a few yr after she left Kenya’s Rift Valley for Saudi Arabia.

Ms. Miriam’s employer fired her after a dispute. Jobless and homeless, Sakan was the one place to go. As soon as there, in line with her household, the employees stated she might depart provided that she paid about $300 for her journey.

She referred to as residence, saying she was being mistreated and underfed. No one might afford to assist. The Kenyan company that had despatched her overseas had gone out of enterprise.

Lastly, her household received a name from one other lady on the middle. She stated Ms. Miriam had tried to flee by an air-conditioning opening however had slipped and fallen two tales. A forensic report stated that Ms. Miriam had died of head wounds. The Saudi police later 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 particular person deaths however stated that each case was completely investigated. He didn’t touch upon the inconsistencies between autopsies and police reviews and wouldn’t say how many individuals had been arrested or prosecuted in labor circumstances.

Mr. Goldstein stated the federal government stopped funding Sakan in 2023. Now, he stated, it pays the recruiting company Smasco to run worker-assistance facilities.

Three Kenyan ladies spoke to The Instances from inside a Smasco middle. The ladies, who spoke on the situation of anonymity for concern of retaliation, stated that they might not go residence until they paid about $400. The corporate didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Returning Residence

As migration to Saudi Arabia surged, reviews of deaths and accidents unfold throughout East Africa. Our bodies started arriving. Every story introduced new outrage.

Individuals shouldn’t have been shocked. The leaders of Kenya and Uganda had ample warning of abuse, but they signed agreements with Saudi Arabia that lacked protections that different leaders demanded.

The Philippines deal in 2012, for instance, assured a $400 month-to-month minimal wage, entry to financial institution accounts and a promise that employees’ passports wouldn’t be confiscated.

Kenya initially demanded comparable wages, in line with a authorities report, however when Saudi Arabia balked, Kenya agreed to a deal in 2015 with no minimal wage in any respect.

The treaty contained little past a promise to determine a committee to watch labor points. The fee was by no means fashioned, a authorities report stated.

Mr. Mohamed, the Kenyan president’s spokesman, stated that the federal government later negotiated $225 month-to-month wages. He stated Kenyan employees have been merely not as extremely regarded in Saudi Arabia. “Philippines is ready to dictate the value,” he stated.

When Uganda reduce its settlement with the Saudi authorities, they made no point out of a minimal wage. The problem of employee mistreatment was effectively mentioned on the time. The Saudi ambassador to Uganda even wrote a column in a Ugandan newspaper assailing critics who “offend and abuse the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” by publicizing abuse.

In 2021, a Kenyan Senate committee discovered “deteriorating circumstances” in Saudi Arabia and an “improve in misery calls by these alleging torture and mistreatment.” The committee advisable suspending employee transfers.

When Mr. Ruto was elected president in 2022, although, the marketing campaign to ship employees overseas intensified. His authorities reached a brand new Saudi labor settlement the next yr and not using a wage improve or substantive new protections.

“It’s a cycle of abuse that nobody is addressing,” stated Stephanie Marigu, a Kenyan lawyer who represents employees.

Now, a number of instances a month, rural Kenyans head to Nairobi to gather a coffin from the airport.

A whole lot of individuals gathered in September at a village faculty in southwestern Kenya. They paid respects to Millicent Moraa Obwocha, who had left her husband and younger son behind months earlier.

Her employer sexually harassed and assaulted her, her husband, Obuya Simon Areba, stated. Issues received so dangerous final summer time, he stated, that she requested her Saudi recruiter to rescue her.

A couple of days later, her husband received the decision that she was useless. She was 24. The Kenyan authorities attributed her demise to “nerve points.”

Her employer, Abdullah Omar Abdul al-Rahman Hailan, stated that Mr. Areba’s account was “deceptive and incorrect” and referred to as a Instances reporter “a clown.”

On the funeral, Ms. Obwocha’s physique lay in an open coffin in a white costume and veil.

Beside her was a six-foot-tall {photograph}. In it, she smiles together with her fingers held up in a V. She is standing outdoors the airport, brimming with optimism.