Kenyan women encouraged to work in Saudi Arabia are being systematically exploited and abused - by both nations.

[Lookwhosintown]

The New York Times article (share token below) reports on a year-long investigation of unexplained deaths, rape and imprisonment of Kenyan women working in Saudi Arabia.

"Saudi Arabia is the top destination, and Kenya’s government has made it easier, cheaper and faster for Kenyans to find work there — with dire consequences."

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/world/africa/kenya-saudi-arabia-worker-abuse.html?unlocked_article_code=1.808.mjD-.4CR6M0R2k8q7&smid=url-share

Completely shocking. There are no situations where women and girls aren't exploited.

I wish that weren't true. The women were told by their employers "I bought you," and some were beaten, raped and kept virtual prisoners. Some were found dead, one in a water tank in the roof.

Is it money, or misogyny that's to blame?

These poor women. Faced with impossible choices at every turn.

I can see Kenya thinking that running an economy on remittances, as many Central American countries do, is an option. But you can’t do that with SAUDI FFS. Where foreigners of colour, especially women have so few rights. And being trapped with children? What will happen to them? It’s dreadful.

According to Wiki, it’s about 4% of the Kenyan economy (remittances) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_remittances_received

I can see how they think that exploiting women means they can get to add a lot to the economy. Tonga has 50% of the economy as remittances. Goodness knows how they handled the pandemic!

But it is (not very) glorified slavery at its heart.

I've been googling unsuccessfully to find it - there was a TV documentary a couple of months ago - BBC? Ch4? possibly Sky who do some really good docus? about a Kenyan woman who followed that route - lured by offers of a proper job, but forced into sex work when she got there, and died in suspicious circumstances.

I'm sorry I couldn't locate it, maybe somebody else saw it and remember the details?

Are you thinking of Death in Dubai? That was about Ugandan women in UAE, but seems to be largely the same set up. It should be on BBC iPlayer. I'd link but on my phone.

Eye Investigations, Death in Dubai: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/n12t256jg

Thank you for finding it.

Uganda not Kenya - I remember that now, no wonder I couldn't find it!

Those fucking medieval bastard reporter-murdering Saudis! Are the the most dispicable POSs on the planet? Fuck them, and fuck anyone who plays snooker, golf, F1, football or anything else in their shitty country.

Saudi Arabia is a rich nation. The men are in charge and hold the power. They have an absolute monarchy in charge, no elections, Islamic law. Saudi Arabia has scorching temperatures due to a large amount of desert in the country.
Kenya is a divided nation in terms of riches and poverty. Most Kenyans are poor. The rich minority hold all the power, so despite the fact that Kenya is a democratic country with elections taking place, there is a great deal of corruption endemic in the country. In Kenya you can practice whatever religion you want to, although the majority are Christian, with a minority being Islamic and also adhering to traditional African beliefs.
Kenya has a more temperate climate than Saudi Arabia. It's hot, but it doesn't have so much desert, and temperatures are sometimes pleasantly warm rather than scorching hot.

It's hard to imagine what it might be like living and working in either of these places as a woman. Does anyone have any experience they can share with us?

I’m sad this thread isn’t better populated.

African women are even less visible than old women.

Thank you. It's interesting to see which subjects catch the imagination. You never know.

I agree that it does seem that African women and other women of colour especially those not in the UK, are extremely invisible. I don't think it's because people don't care, though. I think people become overwhelmed with the horror and fear engendered by what's going on around the world right now.

Something terrible usually happens at Christmas as well, or over New Year. Tsunami, war, mass executions, fall of the Berlin wall (not terrible but highly significant) - meanwhile we have Stuff to Do which, like it or not, always contributes to some kind of compassion deficit around Christmas.

There was a second NYT article — I'll see if I have a share left. A woman wanted to leave and they chronicled how unhelpful the Kenyan embassy was. They will not help their own women. It seems to be massive corruption all round. She couldn't even get herself deported.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/world/africa/saudi-arabia-unmarried-mothers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.e6HR.uEyIMxkEklja&smid=url-share

Thank you for the second article share @knitnerd90 .

The comments under the article were detailed and the responses were illuminating. This response from the NYT Persian Gulf reporter in Riyadh, Vivian Nereim, also addresses@moto748e's post, by describing the actions and corruption in both Saudi Arabia and Kenya (as well as Uganda), who are equally responsible for what happens to women encouraged to go abroad to work, as well as financial investments from major banks in the "work abroad scheme".

"I think it's important to recognize that the much-criticized system that is used to bring cheap foreign labor to the Gulf countries (kafala, as it is called) is not exceptional. It is enmeshed into a vast network of economic exploitation that goes far beyond the Gulf countries, and is predicated on global inequality.

Workers continue to come to the Gulf — often even when they understand the risks they are taking — because they believe this is the best option that they have to better the lives of their families, who would be desperately poor without their remittances. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the largest global sources of remittances, along with the U.S. One of the major focuses of our series on the trade in East African domestic workers was the question of who profits. The answer was not merely Saudi executives and royal family members; it is, in many cases, East African government officials and their family members. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/world/europe/kenya-president-saudi-arabia-maids.html It also did not surprise me terribly when, in another investigation, we discovered that BlackRock and Morgan Stanley were among the major shareholders — via index funds — in a Saudi maid-for-hire company that had effectively abandoned a worker who gave birth. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-children-unwed-mothers.html"

It's hard enough to get accountability in this country where women supposedly have rights. I'm not sure how we can help women in another nation when their own embassy can't be bothered. At best, they might be shamed into doing more. Saudi and UAE get away with it because of their oil wealth - thats not going to change any time soon.

As it stands, whilst I compassion for these poor women, I am also fatigued by how relentless it all is.

I’m bumping. Can’t sleep and hoping for more sisters to see this.

One thing I wish everyone who invests in a pension would do would be to look at where their money is going. An ethical pension fund costs a little bit more but they don't fund this sort of barbarism.

I’ve always had an ethical fund. And honestly, it’s often performed well in hard times. Yes, you can make money in good times with shitty funds. But my ethical funds have been solid.

Unfortunately, these issues are not new. 😔

This has been going on in all of the Gulf countries for maybe 50-60 years. I'm 42 now. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Kuwait. Luckily my parents had relatively decent white collar jobs and worked for a 'good' company so they could keep own passports, but they had their own set of challenges and racism to face.

It was mainly workers from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines etc.
Both women and men in these kinds of jobs are trapped. The women are domestic servants and the men are drivers. They are essentially slaves.
Obviously with women there's the element of rape and sexual abuse. The Arab women would beat the women and make them work like 18-20 hours a day - up early cleaning and cooking food for the whole family (and these Arabs have big families - sometimes multiple wives). The servants are treated like dirt and then the Arab husband harasses and rapes the woman. And the Arab wife knows this happens so (of course) she beats and abuses the woman some more for 'leading' the husband astray.

Every day you open the newspaper and read of yet another woman who has 'fallen' to her death from a balcony or something. And some women managed to flee to the Embassy and would refuse to leave. The Arab 'owners' would demand their worker (property) is returned and also they had their passport, so technically the women can't leave the country. I don't know how these 'diplomatic incidents' were resolved.

If you were a servant for a 'good' Arab family, you would be allowed one day a week as time off. And maybe treated a bit more nicely and not raped.

It's not just domestic staff living with Arab families. Workers are trapped in companies too, especially if they were hired via contractors. My dad knew plenty of men who were told they would work as a chef or staff in some five star hotel, but end up working in some dingy office canteen. They owe these contractors money and can't always travel home or can only visit their families every few years. And usually they are too ashamed to tell their relatives what's really happening.

Every year my mum would ask me to go through all of my toys and clothes and books, and if there was anything I didn't want or need any more and still in good condition, we would box it up and my dad would give it to these men. They wouldn't have been able to afford to buy these things for their kids. So when they travel home, they could take the stuff we donated and pretend to their kids that they bought it for them.

It has taken a few decades but it appears the Indian and the Philippine governments have started demanding better worker rights and treatment for their citizens. So it's no surprise that now the next 'generation' of servants are coming from Africa.
I was shocked in recent transits through Doha airport at how many of the cleaners etc were African. I barely saw any Africans growing up. Staff were all from South Asia and Philippines. So there's clearly a shift as relative wealth and rights have improved in these countries compared to African ones.

And the cycle continues with the same stories, just different sets of people. Such is life. 😔

African countries need to get together and demand better conditions as a bloc.

Thank you for posting this account of your experience and your thoughts. It's not easy reading, but it is very pertinent and relevant.

Certainly, exploitation isn't new, slavery isn't new, corruption isn't new. Hundreds of years of history all round the world shows the endless cycle, rich people using and exploiting the poor, men exploiting women, people who gain power becoming corrupted.

What we are able to do is to show that it's happening and say that we don't agree with it and we don't want it to happen. It's wrong. Even if our voices are in the minority, even if we don't feel we have any ability to affect the bad stuff that's going on, if we take an action even by telling a person about it, it makes a small difference. Together, we can make a difference. Several voices are listened to more readily than just one voice, but just one voice is enough to make a tiny difference which may influence another person.

It's worth noting that the abolition of slavery in Arabia is very recent. Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962; meanwhile, the Trucial States (which became the UAE) abolished slavery in 1964, whilst Oman abolished slavery in 1970. This is, of course, sufficiently recent that there is colour film of slave markets in this region. So when TheColourOutOfSpace mentions exploitative employment going back fifty or sixty years, it shows that this goes right back to the point of abolition, and that the mistreatment of workers is part of this long-term dehumanisation of people seen as others. And, as we saw with Isis, there are still a lot of people in that part of the world who believe that slavery is a colonialist imposition, and that there is not a moral issue with enslaving others.

This is all so awful.
I saw this news story in the NYT, glad the OP had a share token to post it. I hope that by sharing the article and starting the thread raises awareness of these dreadful practises.

I was going to add that I remember there were also cases of women being imprisoned and put to death for killing their employer after having been raped and abused by them.

I went looking for some of the ones I remember and I wish I hadn't. 😫

I think this was one of the cases that became really famous. But I hadn't realised she was only a few years older than me at the time. F*ck. 😫😫

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Balabagan

At age 14, Balabagan decided to work abroad. Her recruiter listed her age as 28 and managed to secure a job for her. She learnt of this falsification only when she was already on her flight to the United Arab Emirates. She was tasked by contract to work for a 67-year-old widower with four sons. Balabagan was anxious of the employment and convinced herself that her employers would respect her since she and they were Muslims.

This was later proven to be false, as Balabagan became a subject of unsolicited sexual advances.

On July 19, 1994, Balabagan killed her employer, Almas Mohammed al-Baloushi, stabbing him 34 times. She alleged that he had tried to rape her, and that she was acting in self-defense.

On June 26, 1995, a court ruled that she was guilty of manslaughter as well as a victim of rape. She was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and ordered to pay 150,000 dirhams (US$40,000) in blood money to al-Baloushi's relatives, while at the same time awarded 100,000 dirhams (US$27,000) as compensation for the rape.[4] However, the prosecution appealed the verdict, calling for the death penalty. On September 6, 1995, a second Islamic court found no evidence of rape and convicted her of premeditated murder, sentencing her to death by firing squad.

Reportedly, it was only after a personal appeal for mercy by President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan that al-Baloushi's family agreed to drop their execution demand in exchange for blood money.[5] On October 30, at her third trial, her sentence was reduced to a year's imprisonment and 100 strokes of the cane, along with payment of blood money, which was donated by a Filipino businessman. She was caned in 20 strokes at a time over five days spanning January 30 – February 5, 1996.

There are far too many cases to list. These are more recent ones. 😔

https://www.vice.com/en/article/saudia-arabia-just-executed-a-maid-for-murdering-her-employer-in-self-defence/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jullebee_Ranara

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-bangladesh-maid-murdered-death-penalty

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/least-274-kenyan-workers-dead-saudi-arabia-over-past-five-years

https://www.mrrors.org/2012/05/nepalese-domestic-worker-murdered-in-desert/

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/6/16/vanished-the-plight-of-3-ethiopian-domestic-workers-in-lebanon

Further to Kenya and 'remittances'. A number of their men went to Russia to work in ordinary jobs but have ended up as frontline troops.
Minimal training, point the gun this way move this, and BANG!