A Kenyan woman working as a house help overseas in Saudi Arabia has turned up dead amid mysterious circumstances.
Melsa Adhiambo Makhokha, age 28, had left her home in Koyonzo Ngairu village in Mumias to take a job as a house help in Saudi Arabia back in 2014.
She was allegedly hired to do the domestic work for a wealthy family.
Everything seemed to be going fine, with Adhiambo calling her family back in Kenya to report that she was looking forward to getting a new contract for work in Saudi Arabia.
That all changed over the weekend as her brother Denis Odhiambo Makokha received a heartbreaking phone call.
Makhokha told the The Standard about how he heard of his late sister’s death:“This was the number I used to communicate with my sister and there was a message in broken English saying that Melsa had been involved in a car accident and was dead,”
Details of Adhiambo’s death have proven to be scarce. Her death leaves behind the three children that she had originally journeyed overseas to support financially.
Her children are now living with her mother.
Domestic workers are known to often face severely harsh conditions within Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries
In one heartbreaking case a 23 year old Kenyan woman, Rosebella Akoth, began to fall ill while working, suffering from kidney issues that left her severely weakened. Her feet began to swell so bad from the condition that it began to be very difficult for her to work.
Instead of pitying her, the employers she was working with gave her more work and accused her of laziness. Eventually she fled from employment only to become homeless. By a twist of luck she met someone who put her in contact with the World Welfare Association. She is now back in Kenya.
Some recruitment centres in Kenya are known to take advantage of young and desperate people seeking employment by promising them lucrative contracts overseas, that often times turn out to be little more than forms of domestic slavery.
One Kenyan worker who was doing construction projects ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar reported being made to do dangerous electronic work although he had no prior training to do so.
