FNW got the shock of her life months after what she had thought would be her dream job in the Gulf.
“I was sent to get chicken from the freezer and prepare it for some guests who were coming. To my never-ending trauma since, I found the full body of a black woman stashed inside it and covered with ice,” she told the Star.
The woman got in touch with her agent, telling them to get her out of the house within one hour or she would cause a dramatic scene.
“I have not healed these many years later. No one ever accessed that freezer as my boss would be the only person to open it. But that day, I think it was just fate.
“I was courageous enough to go get my phone and take a photo. The body had a deep wound on the side of the head and some burns, and I suspect she had been hit by a hot iron box.”
Initially, FNW had been concerned as some belongings, including clothes and the phone of another woman she suspected to be her predecessor, were in the house.
“When I found the body, I got to understand that this was the owner.”
She sent the photo of the body to her agents who then called the police and retrieved it.
“You can actually be here in Kenya thinking your daughter or sister is out there in Saudi Arabia and for four months you have not heard from them and yet they are beaten, killed and stashed in a freezer.”
When Kenyan women doing domestic work in the Gulf countries get violated and are then rescued to be back home, what do they do to get their lives back?
SUPPORTING VICTIMS
Awareness Against Human Trafficking Kenya, a non-governmental organisation, has been hard at work supporting victims of human trafficking like FNW to be successful entrepreneurs.
From giving the victims seed capital to empowering them through workshops, the lobby founded by Polish philanthropist Radoslaw Malinowski has assisted over 1,000 survivors to get their lives back after their rescue.
It has reached trafficking survivors through workshops to build their capacity and 725 have been helped to start businesses.
The lobby based in Nairobi has operated for 13 years and works through a multi-disciplinary approach, applying the UN Four Ps strategy to combat trafficking in persons.
The 4Ps are promoting peace, providing, protection, punishing perpetrators, and promoting prevention.
TRAFFICKING
FNW is one such trafficking survivor, a mother of four with the youngest being 16 years old.
She recounted to the Star how her experience in Saudi Arabia was hellish and she had to flee to avoid being forcefully married off.
She had got a job through a bureau to do housework in the Middle Eastern country in 2022.
FNW escaped back to Kenya and has been trying to get her life back. Haart gave her some seed capital and equipped her with entrepreneurial skills.
MNR is another survivor who assumed she had lost it all but is now working to get her life back. She had jetted to Jeddah in 2021 to work as a house help, only for things to turn out for the worse.
MOLESTATION T
he mother of two says she was subjected to repeated molestation by the husband of her boss but who then used threats of death to keep her silent.
“The first time he raped me and I was so much broken,” he says.
“The second time, he told me that he would use force and hurt me more or we could do it without resistance.”
“The third time, I refused and I told him that I would get a knife and stab him,” she said.
The man descended on her with beatings and threatened to throw her 10 floors down.
“He beat me so much that I developed stroke,” she said.
Luckily, the 33-year-old escaped
and was rescued back to Kenya,
where Haart helped her to start a
business.
