Kenyan Domestic Worker Sentenced To 100 Lashes In Saudi Arabia

A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 40-year-old Kenyan domestic worker, Esther Wanja Muthoni, to 100 lashes for having sex outside marriage after she gave birth to a child in the kingdom.

The sentence, issued in October, followed several court hearings last summer and has left Muthoni fearing for her safety as she struggles to return to Kenya with her one-year-old son, Abudy.

According to the New York Times, Muthoni had been trying for more than a year to leave Saudi Arabia with her child but was unable to do so because of the legal proceedings against her.

“I am so afraid,” she told the newspaper in a telephone interview last month.

“I don’t think I can endure those lashes,” she said.

Muthoni, a mother of five, was working legally as a domestic worker through Maharah Human Resources, a Saudi recruitment company, when she became pregnant following a brief relationship with an Egyptian resident identified only as Mohamud.

She gave birth in August 2025 at a staff accommodation. According to court documents reviewed by the newspaper, a supervisor discovered her and took her and the baby to a hospital, after which police detained her for questioning over the pregnancy.

Muthoni told the police that the child’s father had left Saudi Arabia. The court documents did not provide his surname.

Although she was released from police custody, she was reportedly denied access to both her staff accommodation and a shelter.

She subsequently lived at a petrol station in Riyadh that had become a gathering place for migrant mothers hoping to leave the country with their children.

The New York Times said its investigation published last year had documented the difficulties faced by East African domestic workers who became pregnant in Saudi Arabia, including the bureaucratic obstacles preventing them from obtaining documents for their children and returning home.

Following the newspaper’s earlier report on Muthoni’s situation, Maharah provided her with accommodation, while the Kenyan Embassy issued documents intended to allow her to leave Saudi Arabia.

However, she remained unable to travel while her criminal case was pending.

The newspaper reported that Muthoni was provided with a court interpreter but had no lawyer during the proceedings. The court documents it reviewed also contained no indication that she had legal representation.

Although indigent defendants in Saudi Arabia are entitled to state-sponsored lawyers, experts told the newspaper that criminal trials sometimes proceed without legal representation, including in some cases carrying the death penalty.

In October, the three-judge panel found Muthoni guilty of having sex outside marriage and imposed the 100 lashes prescribed under its interpretation of Islamic law.

The judgment did not indicate that authorities had pursued the child’s father.

Ekaterina Porras Sivolobova, a labour migration analyst and founder of the non-profit organisation, Do Bold, criticised the punishment, saying it violated international human rights standards.

“This sentence of flogging does not align with international human rights standards,” she told the newspaper.

She added that the punishment stripped Muthoni of her dignity instead of protecting a vulnerable woman.

The case has also raised questions about Saudi Arabia’s claims of legal and social reforms, particularly its 2020 announcement of restrictions on flogging.

The New York Times noted that judgments involving morality offences were not routinely published, making it difficult to establish how frequently courts still imposed the punishment.

Saudi Arabia’s judicial system is based on Islamic law, or sharia, but the kingdom does not have a written penal code.

Judges therefore interpret Islamic law in deciding criminal cases, leaving some offences and their punishments open to differing interpretations.

Muthoni did not appeal the judgment, saying she wanted to return home to her other children.

“It is the only way that can take me back home to my children,” she said.

In addition to the lashes, the court sentenced her to a one-year banishment. The newspaper reported that Saudi rules generally allow a person sentenced to banishment to be sent to another city in the kingdom when no destination is specified in the judgment.

It remains unclear whether the order means Muthoni will be deported to Kenya. Her exit documents have also expired, leaving uncertainty over how she and her son will return home.

The Saudi and Kenyan governments, as well as representatives of Maharah, did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.

The newspaper’s earlier investigation found that East African women recruited to work as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia faced reports of physical abuse, sexual violence, withheld wages and abandonment.

It also reported that some Kenyan women who became pregnant while working in the kingdom struggled to obtain birth certificates for their children, while diplomats who could assist them were accused of neglecting their cases or demanding bribes and sexual favours.