Saudi Arabia lashing sentence for Kenyan migrant worker after birth outside marriage, Digi Mart USA News: A Kenyan mother in Saudi Arabia has reportedly been sentenced to 100 lashes after giving birth outside marriage. Under the Saudi sharia law system, sex outside marriage is a criminal offence, but rights groups say women are disproportionately targeted.
Rights groups have condemned the reported punishment as an “act of violence.” Although many unmarried women give birth in Saudi Arabia, rights groups say the Kenyan mother’s case came to light only because she was taken to a hospital, which is required to report single women giving birth to the authorities.
“Most of them give birth at home, that’s why they aren’t reported,” said Ekaterina Porras Sivolobova, founder of Do Bold, a nonprofit organization advocating for migrant workers’ rights in the Gulf. She said it had been difficult to help cases involving Kenyan mothers compared with those from other countries.
“I haven’t been able to get help from the Kenyan authorities to support these women,” she said.
The Kenyan mother, Esther Wanja Muthoni, was recruited to work as a housekeeper and nanny in Saudi Arabia. She reportedly became pregnant during a brief relationship with an Egyptian man, and said the child’s father had since left the country.
A 2024 Guardian investigation found that a number of Kenyan single mothers were abandoned by their children’s fathers out of fear of being arrested for extramarital sex.
After the ruling, which was issued last month, Muthoni told the New York Times she was afraid she would not be able to endure the lashes. “I don’t deserve this,” she said.
The case comes as a planned visit to Saudi Arabia by Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, was postponed last week. Alsalem said she had intended to raise the situation of specific cases during the visit, and that if it does not take place soon, she will do so separately through established channels.
Maryam Aldossari, acting director at the UK-based rights organization ALQST, said the ruling was an act of violence and that the woman should have been sent back to Kenya rather than punished. “It just shows the hypocrisy behind so-called Saudi reform,” Aldossari said, referring to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to show the world that Saudi Arabia is becoming a modern country that empowers women.
In April 2020, Saudi Arabia announced a reform to end flogging as a judicial punishment. However, it applied only to ta’zir offences, where judges have discretion over punishments.
Flogging remained a possible punishment for certain hudud offences, such as alcohol consumption and adultery, according to a 2021 ALQST report.
The Saudi government was approached for comment.
