Saudi Arabia has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes after she gave birth outside of marriage.
The sentence is a crushing blow to the mother, who has attempted for more than a year to return to Kenya with her child but has been blocked at every turn.
The ruling, issued last month, shows the limits of a decade of social and legal reforms in the kingdom, where women can be jailed for ‘illegal pregnancy’.
The mother of five, Esther Wanja Muthoni, is among thousands of East African domestic workers who were recruited as housekeepers and nannies in Saudi Arabia. But if they become pregnant, the women end up trapped in a bureaucratic maze, a New York Times investigation last year revealed.Not only that, but they are exposed to violence.
Hundreds of Kenyan women have been killed, while reports of rape and beatings are common, the newspaper claimed.
For women who become pregnant, like Ms. Muthoni, giving birth brings added punishment and danger.’I am so afraid,’ Ms. Muthoni, 40, told the newspaper in a phone interview last month.
‘I don’t think I can endure those lashes.’ Under Saudi law, women are seated and clothed while lashed across the body with a bamboo stick.