Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua, on Tuesday, left the country for Saudi Arabia to obtain first-hand information about the challenges faced by Kenyan workers in the Gulf state.
This comes in the wake of complaints about maltreatment of Kenyans in Saudi Arabia and news last month that 85 diaspora Kenyan women had died between August and October.
He added that another 1,000 Kenyan women had been repatriated. Mutua held a meeting on Monday with representatives of employment agents who recruit Kenyans for jobs in Saudi Arabia and other countries.
The meeting, which he termed as “complex with mind-boggling revelations”, was aimed at finding lasting solutions for the diaspora workers.
“The information gathered [from the agents] paints a different story from the blame-game trending in the media channels,” Mutua said.
In 2021, Kenya’s foreign ministry said 89 Kenyans, most of them domestic workers, had died in Saudi Arabia in the previous two years. The deaths were attributed to cardiac failure.