Kenyan Woman Narrates Her Eight Months of Hell in Iraq
A Kenyan woman who recently returned to the country after going through hell in the Middle East has narrated the suffering she went through in the hands of her cruel employer.
Lucia Nekesa, a mother of three, left Kenya for Iraq eight months ago after securing a well-paying house help job which she thought would have helped her raise her children and end her family’s poverty.
The contract she had signed with a recruitment agency in Kenya showed that she would work in Qatar but was shocked to learn she would be taken to Iraq after a change was made without her knowledge.
Lucia could not hold her tears on Tuesday as she narrated the suffering her Arabic employer put her through for eight months. Speaking to the media at Haki Africa offices in Mombasa, Lucia recalled how she was assaulted in Iraq over false accusations.
“I was overworked in Iraq. I could not bear it,” she said.
When she informed her employer of her intention to quit, she was taken to the agent’s office headed by a woman named Rahab. Lucia said she was beaten and locked in a small bathroom for three days without food or drink.
While locked up, Rahab deleted all her contacts in an attempt to cut her communication with anyone. “They delete all contacts to cut [your] communication with anyone close to you,” she explained.
She was later moved from the bathroom to a room on the highest floor that absorbed the scorching heat. She spent the next four days there before she was ordered to clean the whole block.
“I started with upstairs rooms, toilets, downstairs and cars. When I finished the agent ridiculed me.”
Later, Nekesa was given two options. The first one was to return to Kenya but she had to refund all the money her boss used to facilitate her travel to Iraq on top of Sh600,000 used to ‘buy’ her from the agency. The second option was to continue to work. She chose the latter.
“It was very hard for the boss to let me go because he had paid a lot of money for me. So they always took me back to the agency for exchange but all I got was punishment for not being able to work.”
She also revealed that one of the people who tortured her was a Tanzanian named John, who lied to her he was a Kenyan.
When she asked him why he tortured fellow Africans, he said: “Mimi hata niambiwe nikuuwe nitakuuwa. Nitafanya vile nimeambiwa” (If I am asked to kill, I will kill you. I will do whatever I am asked to do.)
Nekesa, who was ailing at the time, managed to escape with the help of an African woman. This happened after her employer left the house one evening.
“I went straight to the airport but when I explained my tribulations to the officials, they said they could not help me and called the police.”
The officers questioned her and she provided the contacts of the woman who had helped her escape. From the information given by the woman, the officers called Nekesa’s boss to come to the airport.
“My boss told me that she would give me money to go back home the following day but when we got out, I saw the men from the agency waiting outside.”
She was taken back to the agency where she was beaten up with her employer accusing her of stealing her money.
“I don’t know where my boss got the money she produced as evidence of my alleged theft.”
She was then sold like a slave to another agency. Nekesa said agents in Iraq swindled her out of her salary amounting to more than Sh600,000 while she was preparing to fly back to Kenya.
She divulged that there are many Kenyans who are sexually abused and even tried in Gulf kangaroo courts. Nekesa said she knows two of them who are languishing in a prison in Iraq.
Nekesa was rescued after interventions by Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Haki Africa, a human rights organization.
Comments
This is so sad. These Arabs…
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This is so sad. These Arabs dont want maids. They want slaves. Africans are not going to be subjected slavery anymore.I guess the Arabs still hold the slave-master mentality of 1700s.I know some will come out and say that there are afew bad employers,just like anywhere in the world,but I did agree. Just about all the stories that come out of formers workers in the Arab world is of horrific and inhuman treatment,
Surely there has to be away these bad bosses can be punished.
Africans are really docile. If these mistreated maids were from USA,or Uk,you would see demostrations,and strong government involvment,not to mention heavy backlash.
Flee from Arab countries,…
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Flee from Arab countries, better to die at home from hunger than slavery, pllease GOK, wake up and control those illegal agencies in the country, Matiangi uko wapi and CS immigration kazi kwenu
I am not sympathetic to this…
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I am not sympathetic to this stories any more. We know that that is what you should expect there, regardless of what you are told. You cannot play around with a snake, and expect not to be bitten.
This is unacceptable and…
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This is unacceptable and must be condemned with the strongest terms possible. And then action must be taken starting with the recruitment agency which; apparently seems to be running a slavery racket under the guise of an employment agency. The minute this goons transported Nekesa to Iraq rather than Qatar. They breached the contract which , according to Nekesa was for work in Qatar and not Iraq. This now is a case of kidnap, human trafficking, enslavement, torture, abuse, among numerous other charges. The recruitment agency's officers should be apprehended immediately and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The agency and officers personally should be subjected to all damages to Nekesa including punitive damages. And the government of Uhuru Kenyatta and all those who support it ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This poor Kenyans are cought up in these dragnets of criminal operatives -in their search for basic human needs that our government has failed to make possible for our innocent fellow Kenyans. Did you know that all the money that has been stolen by our leaders and elites through corruption, for the last ten years would have helped Nekesa get a job at home? We are in a rat race but there is hope. Come 2022 elections, we must reject anything: Uhuru, Raila, Ruto, Orengo, Gideon Moi, Kalonzo, Mudavadi, Weta and all the usual suspects who are squarely responsible for running our country down the drain. Kenyans, we didn't get in this miserable condition on our own. Our leaders and elites helped themselves with our resources. For 2022, let us think different! Think Matiang'i, Kibutha--etc. Together we can save Kenya.
Why is she not revealing…
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Why is she not revealing names of agencies involved. She keep on staying she was returned to the agency. She should sue the "agency", and since this is about human trafficking, she can even involve the ICC. That way, she'll help many.
Africans always act like…
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Africans always act like Victims, as if what happens to us is beyond our control. Surprise Surprise! You cannot be mistreated by anyone, unless you yourself accept to be mistreated. Her 'Original Mistake' was accepting a 'job' offer in the Middle East. We know how they treat Africans, especially women. We don't have to change how they think about us, and we also don't have to accept it. We just have to keep out of their way, and make sure that they keep out of ours!
@ Settled Nomad. I concur…
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In reply to Africans always act like… by Settled Nomad (not verified)
@ Settled Nomad. I concur with you. We behave that way because we do not have pride in ourselves.We have become prostitutes. So long are we are paid,in grants, loans,foreign jobs, we are willing to sleep with the devil.
I heard that the IAAF will scratch 3,000Meter, 5000meter,and 10,000 meters from its diamond league, because they take too much TV time.Needless to say that these races are dominated by africans,particularly from east Africa.No reaction from the affected nations yet,other than afew rumblings here and there.If white dominated these longdistance races,trust me, the would even have more TV exposure,and more sponsorship from sports,and other enterprises.
We have just become followers.sometimes I wonder what independence means to africans if they are still in the york of neo colonialism.We are still being treated as not equals,and we accept it by our actions.
Dirty Arabs need to recruit…
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Dirty Arabs need to recruit their maids from their own kind .Why are Africans and Kenyans in particular being used to raise their enemies.All these recruitment agencies need to be banned let Kenyans stay home and gamble at least they are alive.Bring back sports betting.If some people must work as maids the Europeans have “au pairs” but being racists these jobs are suited for their fellow whites.The only good Arab is six feet under .Why are they coming all the way to Africa to recruit they should hire their neighbors the Jews in Israel see how that goes .
Nigerian 'torture house':…
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Nigerian 'torture house': Hundreds freed in Kaduna police raid 27 September 2019
Nigerian Police Some captives were as young as five years old, police said
Nearly 500 men and boys have been rescued from a building in the northern city of Kaduna, where the detainees were allegedly sexually abused and tortured, Nigerian police said. Children as young as five were among those in chains at what was thought to be an Islamic school, officers said.
Kaduna police chief Ali Janga told the BBC the building was raided after a tip-off about suspicious activity.
He described it as a "house of torture" and a place of human slavery. Eight suspects, most of them teachers, were arrested. The police chief said the detainees - some with injuries and starved of food - were overjoyed to be freed.
Africa Live: Updates on this and other stories
The boy abducted to guide blind beggars
The detainees said they had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving - in some cases for several years.
"I have spent three months here with chains on my legs," Bell Hamza reportedly told Nigerian media.
"This is supposed to be an Islamic centre, but trying to run away from here attracts severe punishment; they tie people and hang them to the ceiling for that."
Even if poor our country …
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Even if poor our country ,our pple are they should not go to any Arab country. There are many alternatives other than going to those countries
Arabs are welcome to any…
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Arabs are welcome to any African country but Africans aren't welcome to any arab country, why?
Maybe African should give the same welcoming arabs give to Africans.
They are free in our countries, but we are slaves in theirs.
This people are so evil I…
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This people are so evil I have sefered there in Iraq no did I have anybody to help me after then I saw God with my eyes after a long story but I thank God I paid my ticket and came back home
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