In most countries, work as a housekeeper or nanny is a relatively safe profession.
Nevertheless, we traveled through Kenya and Uganda, from crowded and poor city districts to distant agricultural villages, we heard many variations of the same horror story: young, healthy women went to home in Saudi Arabia, just to come back, frightened or in a coffin.
At least 274 Kenyans, almost all women, have died in Saudi Arabia over the past five years. At least 55 years died last year, twice as much as in the previous year.
The autopsy has raised only more questions. The body of a woman from Uganda showed extensive bruises and signs of electricity, but her death was described as “natural”. We found a surprising number of women who fell from roofs, balconies or in one case open to air conditioning.
How could it be? It was almost some dark industry with players flying at night. East African women are accepted thousands and trained by established companies and then sent to Saudi Arabia through the process of regulated and approved by the Ugandan, Kenyan and Saudi governments.
The advocates of workers have long accused archaic Saudi working laws. But we thought it was something else. We spent almost a year trying to lose it.
Workers sell a dream that often becomes a nightmare.
We intervened with more than 90 workers and their families and carefully analyzed employment contracts whenever we could.
We found that women from Kenya and Uganda are lured to Saudi Arabia with promises of better wages and opportunities.
Recruitment agencies and their brokers provide misleading wage information and make the workers to sign contracts they cannot read.
Some agencies sell women as products. The agencies websites offer “for sale” to Saudi clients. We saw the one who had the option of clicking on the selection.
When women arrive in the kingdom, employers often confiscate their passports and things. Kenyan housekeeper in Saudi Arabia work about $ 250 per month. But many women told us that their new bosses shortened them or refused their wages and said, “I bought you.”
Strong people from these women make money.
Using work contracts and whenever we could find them, autopsy, police reports or legal documents, we began to explore companies that benefited these women.
Corporate records and submission of securities led us to powerful people, including officials who could protect these workers.
We found that high -ranking officials in Kenya and Uganda and their families, own shares in recruitment agencies.
For example, Fabian Kyule Muli is a member of the Kenyan Parliament and also owns an agency that sends women to Saudi Arabia. He is the vice -chairman of the Parliamentary Labor Committee, a work that can adopt the laws on the protection of workers. The Committee was sometimes a champion for missing more people to Saudi Arabia and denied that workers were injured there.
In Saudi Arabia, there were members of the royal family, including the descendants of King Faisal, the main investors in agencies supplied by domestic workers. Saudi officials also hold high -ranking positions with recruitment agencies.
Despite the years of growing evidence of abuse, the leaders, including President William Rut of Kenya, promised to send more workers abroad. One of his best advisors was owned by a personnel company. Similarly, the Nzaire Sedrack, which Ugandan Media identifies as the brother of the long -time president of this country Yoweri Musveni.
Women who are abused have little use.
In interviews, women told us through tears that their bosses in Saudi Arabia denied them, raped them, attacked them or stabbed them.
Yet East African governments ignored the calls of activists and groups of human rights to negotiate better work agreements with Saudi Arabia. Employment contracts They include only the minimum worker’s warranty.
The Saudi government claims that its enforcement and courts protect workers from abuse and help them strive to seek. However, women told us that they could not gain access to these resources, and the police sent them back to offensive employers or government facilities that felt like a prison.
Many abused workers must pay home for their own flight, despite the regulations that they should not do it. Our news has found that desperate workers often returned home, broke, disabled and suicide.
And in cases of serious injury or death, families must navigate bureaucracy, apathy and impunity. In Uganda, Isiko Moses Waiswa told us that his wife had died in Saudi Arabia.
Her employer gave him a choice: her body or her $ 2,800 in wages.
“I told him that whether you were sending me money or not sending me money, I, I want my wife’s body,” Mr. Waiswa told us.
