Ban Kenyan Women from working in Saudi Arabia

The world has been shocked by an online video that shows the brutal treatment of an Ethiopian housemaid Ms Alem Dechasa, 33 by people who are said to be her employers. Ms Dechasa is said to have later committed suicide in a Lebanese hospital probably to escape from the jaws of her tormentors or because of stress.

The story that was exclusively aired by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation last month and is now posted on social network site You tube shows the late Dechasa being manhandled by two men as they try to subdue her and put her into a vehicle.

The story of Ms Dechasa brings us close to what we have heard and seen about the treatment of women working in Middle East countries and if it is anything to go by, then the experience is not only brutal but a gross violation of human rights.

You might wonder what the story has to do with Kenya. In the recent past there have been claims by many Kenyan women who worked in Arabic countries as domestic servants about the mistreatment they go through at the hands of their employers. They give harrowing tales about how they are brutalized, raped, and at times go without food for longer times.

They say that an attempt to run away from the almost slave like conditions is usually met with brutal force. For those who are lucky they may survive, but for others it ends up in fatal injuries or death. The problem becomes compounded by the fact that here in Mombasa and at the Coast in general a chance to work in the Middle East is seen as a ticket to say goodbye to the shackles of poverty.  As such, despite the harrowing tales, more and more young women some of whom are barely educated join the flight in droves to work in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries.

A major concern is that nobody wants to take responsibility for the inhumane treatment of our women in those countries. If you ask government, it will tell you that it was not in the first place aware when the maids were being recruited to work in those countries. In fact, there are no existing official figures on the number of women working in Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries. Government will tell you that they only come to know of the existence of the employees when are in distress and therefore there is little that it officers can do.

Yet, at the same time it is the same government that licenses the employment agencies that are making a killing by transferring the helpless women to these countries. One Muslim scholar tells me that the operators of the agencies should be arrested and prosecuted for operating human trafficking bureaus.

A distraught and Grieving Alem Dechasa's Father

That notwithstanding, the agencies have a responsibility to ensure that the people whom they recruit are treated in the most humane way and that they are not exploited because of their want and helplessness.

The Saudi government should stop blaming employees for not fully studying their employment contracts. Contracts, aside it has the responsibility to adhere to international best practices and ensure that migrant workers working for its middle class are not subjected to human rights abuses. Further still parents should ensure that their children understand that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence and the promised “dinars” could be a path to fatality or death.

It is time that the concerned stakeholders stop passing the buck and address the problem head on. The Kenyan Government has the responsibility to blink first by ensuring that they crack down on the rogue employment agencies as well as scrutinize the employment contracts that are said to be lope-sided in favour of employers. The government acting on its constitutional mandate of protecting the lives and security of its people could ban the employment of Kenyan women as maids in Saudi Arabia.