A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a Kenyan domestic worker to 100 strokes of a cane and one year of banishment for having sex and birthing a child outside wedlock.
Esther Wanja Muthoni, 40, was convicted of sex outside marriage and consequently sentenced last month for carrying an “illegal pregnancy”, the New York Times reported.
She dated an Egyptian man, Mohamud, who was also living in Saudi Arabia and got pregnant during the brief relationship.
Mr Mohamud has left the kingdom, and court documents did not reveal his last name.
Filings also did not reveal whether the kingdom made any attempt to prosecute Ms Muthoni’s ex-boyfriend for the same crime.
Ms Muthoni’s ordeal mirrors that of thousands of Africans working as housekeepers and nannies in the Islamic kingdom, where laws are rigid regarding unmarried women who become pregnant.
“I am so afraid,” Ms Muthoni told The Times. “I don’t think I can endure those lashes.”
Ms Muthoni, who gave birth in August 2025, secured her job through Maharah Human Resources, a Saudi Arabian company.
She birthed the baby in the accommodation provided for staff, but was taken to a hospital after the supervisor found out.
Police approached her with questions about her marital status. She disclosed that her baby’s father, Mohamud, had left the country. She had no last name for the man, court filings seen by The Times showed.
The Saudi police subsequently detained Ms Muthoni.
Her police ordeal caused her to lose the staff accommodation, and she was denied a spot at the shelter.
Ms Muthoni found refuge at a gas station where she spent the night alongside other immigrant mothers awaiting deportation with their children.
Maharah provided accommodation after The Times’ initial report of the matter, and the Kenyan government also provided travel documents to ease her return to her home country.
But Ms Muthoni, a mother of five, was not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia until the matter was concluded.
The Kenyan woman, who has no lawyer, did not appeal the sentence, implying it might slow the process of her return to Nairobi.
“It is the only way that can take me back home to my children,” she told The Times.