Saudi court sentences Kenyan domestic worker to 100 lashes for giving birth outside of marriage

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes after she gave birth outside of marriage.The sentence is a crushing blow to the mother, who has attempted for more than a year to return to Kenya with her child but has been blocked at every turn. The ruling, issued last month, shows the limits of a decade of social and legal reforms in the kingdom, where women can be jailed for 'illegal pregnancy'.The mother of five, Esther Wanja Muthoni, is among thousands of East African domestic workers who were recruited as housekeepers and nannies in Saudi Arabia. But if they become pregnant, the women end up trapped in a bureaucratic maze, a New York Times investigation last year revealed.Not only that, but they are exposed to violence. Hundreds of Kenyan women have been killed, while reports of rape and beatings are common, the newspaper claimed.For women who become pregnant, like Ms. Muthoni, giving birth brings added punishment and danger.'I am so afraid,' Ms. Muthoni, 40, told the newspaper in a phone interview last month. 'I don’t think I can endure those lashes.' Under Saudi law, women are seated and clothed while lashed across the body with a bamboo stick. Saudi Arabia has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes after she gave birth outside of marriage'I don’t deserve this,' she said of the lashings in a recent interview. The children of unwed mothers are regularly denied birth certificates and Kenya's diplomats, responsible for issuing them and helping mothers and children get home, frequently ignore them, insult them and solicit bribes for sex. Ms. Muthoni and her 1-year-old son, Abudy, are victims of an exploitative industry that recruits African women to Saudi Arabia in a labour pipeline from which top Kenyan government officials profit, the newspaper alleged.The woman was working legally as a domestic worker through Maharah Human Resources, a Saudi corporation, when she had a brief relationship with an Egyptian resident of the kingdom and became pregnant.After she gave birth in August 2025 in staff housing, a supervisor discovered them and took her to hospital.There, police officers detained her for questioning about the pregnancy.According to statements given to the police, Ms. Muthoni said that the father, a man named Mohamud, had left the country.She was released but was subsequently refused entry from staff accommodation and a shelter.She also received no help from the Kenyan Embassy.Ms. Muthoni started living at a petrol station that had become a meeting place for migrant mothers, many of whom craved deportation with their children.Last year, Maharah provided her with somewhere to stay and the Kenyan Embassy provided documents permitting her to depart the country. But she could not depart from Saudi Arabia while the legal case against her was pending. Multiple hearings took place last summer before a three-judge panel at a criminal court in Riyadh, according to court documents.Ms. Muthoni says she had been provided with a court translator but not a lawyer. While indigent defendants in Saudi criminal cases are entitled to state-sponsored lawyers, trials often proceed without them in practice, even in some capital cases, according to experts.Sex and pregnancy outside of marriage are effectively in a legally grey area, where some women face no repercussions and others are prosecuted.The legal system of the country is grounded in Sharia, or Islamic law.Because the kingdom lacks a written penal code, judges interpret Islamic law on a case-by-case basis.A court found Ms. Muthoni guilty of having sex before marriage in October.The verdict was delivered after judges relied on an orthodox interpretation of Islamic law that prescribes 100 lashes based on a verse in the Quran. The court judgment does not suggest that the state pursued the father.'This sentence of flogging does not align with international human rights standards,' Ekaterina Porras Sivolobova, a labour migration analyst and founder of the nonprofit Do Bold, told the New York Times.She added: 'It strips a mother of her dignity and does the opposite of protecting vulnerable women. It targets them.'In 2020, the government announced significant curbs to the sentence of lashes, but Ms. Muthoni's situation shows inconsistencies in the kingdom's supposed reforms.At the time of the government move six years ago, state-owned media described the announcement as a 'landmark decision'.While Saudi and international news outlets gave the impression that flogging had been abolished, the decision left a loophole for cases in which Islamic law prescribes flogging, including for sex outside marriage. It is impossible to determine how often lashing is still ordered, because judgements for morality crimes are not routinely published.Without any legal representation, Ms. Muthoni did not appeal her sentence.'It is the only way that can take me back home to my children,' she said.Following the ruling issued last month, it is unclear when the lashing will take place.The Kenyan exit documents have also expired, so it is not clear whether or how she and her son will be allowed to return to Kenya.As well as the lashes, the court sentenced Ms. Muthoni to a year of banishment. Under Saudi law, if a judgment does not specify a destination, the person is usually sent to another Saudi city. Courts are able to review such sentences if women have no male relatives to accompany them. It was not known whether this means Ms. Muthoni will be deported to Kenya.