When Patricia Wanja left Kenya for Saudi Arabia, she promised her two children a better life but this now seems a mirage.
Wanja, 25, is emotionally stressed and lacks the will to continue working anymore in Saudi. She is a domestic worker and does house chores for one of her employers in Saudi.
Wanja took to social media with a recorded video detailing her suffering in Saudi saying it is time to go back home but need the government’s help to do this.
Just recently, she narrated, she was terrified to death after bumping into a pistol on the coffee table as she cleaned the house.
This added to her fears after undergoing a series of inhuman treatment at the hands of her Saudi employer weeks after starting on her work.
“I was just so terrified. I held it with the rug I was cleaning with and I felt it was light. I just left it,” she narrates in the video.
She further accuses her agent, Mahara Human Resources Company of duping her. She is supposed to get a Ksh30,000 salary but only gets Ksh25, 983.
Wanja says the fear of being imprisoned makes her not air her grievances and continues to works like nothing is wrong.
In the short video, she complains that her boss has physically abused her and failed to give her medical attention when she was sick.
This goes against the terms of her contract which clearly states that she should get medical attention in the event she falls ill.
This is not the first case of Kenyans working in Saudi Arabia being mistreated.
In 2019, the government enacted a law requiring all recruiting agents to deposit Ksh1.5 million as a security bond.
The agencies also are required to ensure that Kenyans working in Saudi Arabia get a minimum of Ksh30,000.
