A Kenyan woman currently detained at the labour offices at Jouf Sakaka in Saudi Arabia has sent audio recordings appealing for assistance to return home.
In the recording sent to the Nation, Elizabeth Sineno narrates how her hopes of improving her life were thwarted.
The distraught woman gave details of how human trafficking was rampant in the Middle East nation after she was sold off to another unidentified woman by her former boss.
Ms Sineno hails from Watamu in Mombasa County where she left in 2014 for Saudi Arabia, hopeful of getting a job that would emancipate her from poverty.
Her first employer hired her services for four years, though on and off and things were not all flowery.
She went further to recount the fateful day in June 16, 2018, when the said woman, together with her son, drove her off to a city called Tabuk in the northwest and abandoned her there.
The son was driving the car and after several kilometers away from the closest town, she was asked to alight after the woman claimed there was a puncture.
“The son, who was on the wheel, faked a puncture and asked everyone to disembark the vehicle. He then threw my bags outside before he and his mother drove away leaving me behind,” Ms Sineno recalled.
Police officers found her stranded with her luggage and took her to a police station at Aljouf Sakaka, a city farther northwest.
She was then taken to the labour offices where she met other women detained there.
“Since then, we have been held hostage at the labour offices for the last one year without proper accommodation nor medication,” the woman tearfully lamented.
Their efforts to solicit help from the Kenyan embassy in Saudia Arabia have hit the wall severally.
“We have been trying to reach the Kenyan embassy for assistance to no avail and we request Kenyans of good will to help us get back home,” she pleaded.
A media coordinator and community worker in Watamu, Noni Mbuggus, told the Nation that Ms Sineno’s parents and her friends cannot afford to bring her back to Kenya.
“I know Ms Sineno’s parents cannot raise money for her air ticket back to Kenya and that’s why she has resorted to making an appeal to well-wishers,” stated Mr Mbuggus.
The women appeal to Kenyans to help them get back home to take care of their children, who are now said to be suffering since they depended on their salary for survival.
