Saudi Court Sentences Kenyan Domestic Worker to 100 Lashes Over Child Born Outside Marriage: Kenya to Raise Case Through Diplomatic Channels
An investigation published by The New York Times on November 10 disclosed that Esther Wanja Muthoni, a 40-year-old Kenyan domestic worker, was convicted by a criminal court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, of having sex outside marriage and was sentenced in October by a three-judge panel to 100 lashes plus one year of banishment. For more than a year she has been trying to return to Kenya with her one-year-old son, Abudy, but the criminal case has blocked her departure; it remains unclear when the punishment will be carried out or whether the banishment order means deportation to Kenya.
Muthoni, a mother of five, was working legally in Saudi Arabia as a housekeeper and nanny through the recruitment company Maharah Human Resources when she became pregnant after a brief relationship with an Egyptian man identified as Mohamud. She gave birth to her son in staff accommodation in August 2025. The child's father has since left Saudi Arabia, and the judgment does not indicate that authorities pursued him; Muthoni attended her hearings with the help of an interpreter. Saudi Arabia announced reforms in 2020 restricting flogging as a judicial punishment, and the court in this case relied on its interpretation of a religious provision prescribing the penalty.
Kenya's Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing'oei said on November 11 that his government was concerned by the sentence, describing the punishment as cruel and inhuman by Kenyan legal standards, while acknowledging Saudi Arabia's judicial sovereignty and saying Kenya would keep engaging the Saudi authorities through diplomatic channels. Rights groups and labour-migration analysts said the case again exposed the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf.
(Source: The New York Times)
Source: The New York Times
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：沙特阿拉伯首都利雅得天际线与王国中心大厦（资料图）。照片：B.alotaby 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Riyadh skyline and Kingdom Centre tower in the Saudi capital (file photo). Photo by B.alotaby, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
