Help my daughter before she dies in Saudi Arabia, mother pleads
Photo of Agnes Wairimu.
The last time Josephine Wairimu heard from her daughter Agnes Wairimu or Shiro was on March 1 this year. She remembers her words: “Mum, please help me, I have not eaten for days.”
Agnes went silent, and then Ms Wairimu heard the voice of a man shouting in Arabic. She became nervous, anxious, agitated and confused.
The firstborn in her family and a mother of two, Agnes went to Saudi Arabia to work, but it turns out that she was putting her freedom on the line and now she cannot travel back home.
The mother now wants her daughter back in Kenya.
“At this point, money is not important, I just want to see my daughter,” Ms Wairimu said.
She went to the agency that recruited her daughter. The manager responded that her daughter should escape to the nearest police station.
“I talked to (the manager) and he told me to tell my daughter not to do her chores if her employers are not paying her,” Ms Wairimu said.
“I got worried because from what I have heard and read, employers there are not good people and if she doesn’t do the chores, they will mistreat my daughter.”
Agnes went to Saudi Arabia in June last year. Everything was okay in the first month, until it was not.
“The household she was sent to was okay. She even used to send pictures. The employer had even thrown a birthday party for her,” Ms Wairimu reminisced.
But things changed quickly. Ms Wairimu was told that her daughter had been moved to other houses and that things were not going well because she had not been paid.
“After the first month, she called me and said she had moved out of the house where she was working and had gone to another house. She didn’t say why, and because we were talking using the employer’s daughter’s phone, (Agnes) called me and said she would not be able to talk to me for a couple of days.”
Four months passed and Ms Wairimu had not heard from her daughter.
“She went silent. That’s when I started getting worried and decided to follow up with the agency. They promised me that they would follow up but they took me round and round,” she said.
“Every-time I called them, they said they had not received feedback from the Saudi Arabian Embassy.
“The agency told me that if I reached my daughter, I should tell her to run away to a police station, something that scared me.”
She says she is fed up with the agency’s false promises and wants help from the authorities.
“Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope and I cannot see any results, but now I want to see my daughter. If they are not paying her, she is not eating, she sleeps in corridors, why can’t they send back my daughter?”
A family that saw an opportunity and took it now regrets every second of it. For Ms Wairimu, it has been a nightmare, waking up to check on her grandchildren, not knowing where their mother is.
Solomon Rohio, the manager at Acumen Agencies, which sent Agnes to Saudi Arabia, said they have been following up on her case.
“I have talked to the family over this. However, sometimes there is a communication breakdown, but that does not mean we have neglected her,” he said.
“She has been reported to be okay and we have reported to the labour (office) in Saudi Arabia and they are following up on that issue, and we have also followed up with the office, and the employer is the one who has been taking us back and forth.”
In the last two years, dozens of Kenyans who had gone to work in the Middle East have been flown back in coffins while others have returned with harrowing stories of torture.
Statistics from the Ministry of Labour in 2021 showed that 97 Kenyans had died in one of the Middle East countries in just two years. The majority of the victims died under mysterious circumstances amid allegations of rape and torture.
As the sun sets, Ms Wairimu looks at her phone, still awaiting a call from her daughter to reassure her that she is safe.
