Thirty-three year old Mary Mutunga from Mbakalo village in Tongaren sub-County is lucky to be alive to narrate a harrowing experience she passed through in Saudi Arabia where she worked as a house help for a year and two months.
In an exclusive interview with west media limited, a cheerful but tough Mary said she was introduced to an agent in Kitale by a friend who promised her together with seven others that he will help them get well-paying jobs outside the country and they willingly accepted.
She said they all travelled to Nairobi where their passports were quickly processed and since they were in dire need of employment they could not question the nature of the job they were going to do hence bid their families goodbye and left.
On the travelling day is when she says they realized they were going to Saudi Arabia and could not back out since they were willing to make extra cash after staying jobless for a very long time yet they had many dependants.
She says on reaching Saudi Arabia each one of them was picked by different families who took them to different places in the country, adding that life was really difficult for her as the tasks she was assigned were really tiresome.
“I used to wake up at 3am in the morning after having slept at 1am, my duties in the house included cleaning thirty-six rooms on a daily basis, washing clothes of all the family members, taking care of their children and cooking for them,” she narrated
However, she said she used to be denied food as her employer saying was not entitled to eat in the house and that she wasn’t given her salary for the first three months she worked for the family.
Mary disclosed that she used to eat the leftovers and drank a lot of water which sustained her as days went on, saying she grew thinner and weaker but she could not escape as she did not have any access outside the house after being confined since she reported.
“When I asked for salary, my employer brushed me off saying I was sold to them at a fee of a half a million Kenyan shillings and they could not release me until my contract expires so my duty was only to work for them,” she said.
Mary said her employer finally obliged and paid her some money which she managed to send her family little of it and later she was transferred to work for another family.
She said that the other family was bigger than the first one, therefore, had more responsibilities but she requested to talk to her agent to notify him that she had moved to work for another family but her request was denied.
“I worked for the other family for close to three months and after I was given salary I escaped with hopes of finding a good Samaritan who would take me to the airport so that I fly back to Kenya but unfortunately it was not easy,” she pondered
Mary says she found a man whom after explaining her case decided to take her to a nearby police station where instead of helping her they detained her for some days saying she was pretending to be lost and they wanted to take her back to her employer.
She said after being detained for some days the police found no need of detaining her any further saying the state would pay for her ticket back to Kenya and that is when she got the opportunity to get back to Kenya.
However, she called upon the Kenyan government to probe the syndicate saying many of Kenyan girls have died while others have no access of getting back to Kenya and would wish to come back after suffering in the hands of the foreigners.
Sophie Elizabeth Kibuywa the director of Development Education Services for Community Empowerment (desece) an organization dealing with human rights based at Mukuyuni in Tongaren sub County says the government needs to conduct a thorough probe into the matter so as to save lives of many girls who are duped into travelling to overseas country to search for jobs yet they end up being mistreated.
She says as an organization they are involved in to sensitizing the public on matters of human rights and are willing to work with the government to save the endangered lives of girls who have been previously affected by the syndicate.
“With the County government in place parents need to educate their children on several courses offered in colleges such as catering, tailoring among others so that they can be self-employed right in our country rather than going outside,” she said.
