23 mistreated domestic workers jet back from Saudi Arabia

Twenty-three women who had been employed as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia have safely jetted back into the country following an online plea to have them assisted to return home.

Speaking to Citizen Digital, the women said they had gone to Saudi Arabia in search of greener pastures, only to be mistreated by their employers and made to work under harsh and deplorable conditions.

According to one woman, her contract stated that she would be a domestic worker in a home and would be paid an average of Sh16,000 a month, however, when she arrived in Saudi Arabia her passport was confiscated and she wasn’t paid her salary.

She lamented that there were more than 110 women in the deportation camp in Saudi Arabia who are desperate to return home.

In September last year, the Ministry of Labour announced that it had suspended the licenses of all recruitment agencies that dealt with the recruitment of Kenyans to the Middle-East following reports of mistreatment of Kenyan domestic workers in the Arabian country.

Report by Evelyn Wambui