Kenyan Woman Returns from Saudi Arabia After Seven Years, Shares Her Story

In 2014, Merab Wanjiku left Kenya for Saudi Arabia in search of greener pastures to enable her to provide for her three children.

Seven years later, Wanjiku has returned home not only empty-handed but also with two more kids she delivered while in the Gulf state.

Wanjiku, who hails from Gatundu, Kiambu County, recently shared her story on Baruthi Wa Thayu YouTube channel after arriving in the country a fortnight ago.

The woman said she decided to go to Saudi Arabia to work as a house help after running away from her abusive husband.

"A friend of mine who saw how I was suffering in the marriage gave me the idea to go to Saudi. She asked me to look for Sh10,000 so that I could get started with the process," she said. 

Things started going south four months after she arrived in the Middle East nation as she was experiencing pain due to the beatings she got from her estranged husband, making it hard to handle chores in her employer’s house. She asked to return to Kenya but the employer was not willing to release her.

"They took me to another Arab's house to work for them but there, the workload was even worse," she said. 

Her attempts to seek assistance from the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh were unsuccessful, forcing her to remain there.

Wanjiku later met a Kenyan couple who conned her nearly all the money she had earned, leaving her with nothing to survive on. 

She started interacting with a group of ladies whom she would party with in Saudi and in the process met her first Sudanese lover who impregnated her. 

"When I became pregnant, he, however, left to his country, never to return. I did not even get to speak to him again," she said.

A few months later, she fell for another Sudanese man who equally impregnated her and fled, making her life unbearable. Left with no option, she surrendered to a deportation center together with her two children and was repatriated to Kenya a few weeks ago.

At home, the situation was worse after she found that her estranged husband remarried and abandoned the three children they had together.