Kenya's national government on Wednesday, July 29, announced that it would be sending a group of officials to Beirut, Lebanon. This comes after a damning feature published by CNN highlighting alleged abuse and mistreatment of Kenyan woman at the consulate.
The Kenyan Ambassador to Kuwait Halima Mohamed acknowledged that the matter had been brought to her attention and she would also deploy a fact-finding team to Lebanon.
“We are planning to travel to Lebanon for a fact-finding mission in the first week of August, because our airspace is currently closed,” she stated.
Kenya's Embassy in Kuwait is recognized as responsible for serving Kenyans in Lebanon as well, but with 1,527.4 km separating the two cities, the Lebanese Honorary Consul was charged with handling Kenyan affairs in Lebanon.
This is how Sayed Chalouhi, and his assistant Kassem Jaber, both Lebanese nationals, ended up as official representatives of Kenya in their country, despite their nationality.
The two have vehemenlty denied any of the sexual abuse or bribery allegations that were detailed in the CNN report.
According to the CNN investigative reporters, several Kenyan women working in Lebanon have come forward with tales of their tortorous ordeal at the consulate.
One woman identified as Gloria (not her real name) claimed to have paid the honorary consul Ksh150,000 to help her return to Kenya.
She further claimed that despite handing him 5 year's worth of savings after labouring as domestic help, she is yet to make it back home.
"They started pushing me and beating me and I also pushed them," she told CNN, with a lot of expletives thrown her way during the confrontation.
According to the damning exposé, at least 7 other women have come forward with gruesome tales of how they were allegedly physically assaulted by Kenya's Honorary Consul in Lebanon.
Another domestic worker told the media that the consul suggested she engage in sex work to save up for her repatriation fees.
On his part, the assistant consul, Jaber, categorically denied the allegations when he spoke to CNN, and insisted that his office had helped hundreds of Kenyan women in Lebanon.
In April 2020, a group of Kenyan migrants working in Lebanon wrote a letter to the country's embassy in Kuwait detailing the alleged abuse, gross neglect and coercion to perform sex work and overcharging for consular services.
Lebanon's economy has been on a freefall since October 2019, making it hard for families to afford the services of domestic workers.
The global Covid-19 pandemic made the situation even worse, leaving the estimated 1,000 Kenyan women working as domestic workers in the Middle Eastern nation, desperate to find a way back home.
On June 28, Lebanon grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons after a video of two women held hostage in the country went viral.
In the video, the two women disclosed that they were living in disheartening conditions after being locked up in a house with several other women.
The first woman disclosed that they had been locked up in the room for three months and that they only received one meal a day.
