The government has contacted the family of a woman held captive in Iraq with plans to have her released from her employment and returned to Kenya.
Lucia Nekesa, 40 found herself in Iraq after a rogue Kenyan recruitment agent trafficked her there while promising a lucrative job in Qatar as a domestic worker.
On Monday the National Employment Authority contacted Nekesa's husband Gilbert Oduor to seek details on her plight and offer support in her repatriation to Kenya.
Oduor also told the Star on Monday evening that the Iraqi agent had been in touch with him asking him to make arrangements to pick his wife from the agency in Iraq.
“He sent me text messages that Lucia has been released from her workplace and that her boss does not want her services anymore,” Oduor said on phone.
The Star highlighted Nekesa's plea on Monday.
“Your wife will be here today so you need to take her tomorrow. The boss said to tell you this. You can ask her for more details,” the Iraqi agent told Oduor via WhatsApp.
The agent also told Oduor that he had “washed my hands from this issue” and asked him to contact 'the boss' for further details.
On Sunday, Nekesa’s mother Risper Nafula, 65, said she had been traumatised by her daughter’s ordeal.
She said she was afraid to talk to her due to the emotional pain she got when she listened to her story.
“I cannot speak to her. She speaks to her sisters, who tell me what is going on,” she told journalists at the Haki Africa offices in Mombasa.
In a video plea for help, Nekesa said her health had deteriorated because of frequent beatings ostensibly for being lazy.
“I am bleeding a lot. I have tried taking medication but they do not work,” she said.
Nekesa said her agent in Iraq made her work for different people as a domestic worker.
She said she was sometimes locked in the bathroom for up to three days with two meals a day as the agent looked for clients she could work for.
“They bring breakfast at 1pm and lunch at 5pm while I'm the bathroom,” she said.
Haki Africa rapid response officer Mathias Shipeta said fake recruitment agents were increasingly taking advantage of the desperation of job seekers to traffic them.
“When you take a Kenyan to Iraq for a commission, what are you doing? It is like you are sacrificing that Kenyan,” Shipeta said.
He called on the government to rein in on all briefcase recruitment agencies.
Shipeta urged Kenyans to use the right channels when travelling abroad for work.
“The business is so lucrative that now agents in the Middle East travel to Kenya to recruit people into slavery themselves. The government has to double their efforts to protect Kenyan migrant workers,” he said.
(edited by O. Owino)
