In 2023, Ms Eunice Magori’s family decided to sell a portion of their land at Sh500,000 to raise money for her and her sister to travel abroad for greener pastures.
The two travelled to Turkey in March last year after obtaining all the necessary documents and air tickets.
However, despite the sacrifices made, Ms Magori’s stay in the foreign land was to last only about seven months after realising that the situation on the ground was nothing close to her expectations. She returned home with nothing to smile about.
Narrating her ordeal to Nation.africa, the woman who hails from Kisii County said that immediately after she arrived in Turkey, her bosses confiscated her passport and she worked without a salary for four months. She was to get a Sh60,000 monthly salary.
“The agent informed us that there were jobs with a good salary in Turkey but because we could not afford the money required, my family sold a portion of land to process our passports. The work was tedious, doing house chores and looking after two children without enough food,” says Ms Magori.
“I became weak and emaciated. But anytime I complained to the Turkish agent, she threatened to deport me until she reported me to the police and I was arrested and deported. It was saddening that my clothes were brought to me while at the deportation centre,” she said.
She stayed at the deportation centre for two months and was sent back home to Kenya in October.
Ms Magori said that efforts to get help from both the Kenyan and Turkish agents were not fruitful even after pleading with them.
According to her, she opted to pay the Kenyan agent some money to offer her an alternative place of work, but the agent took the cash and failed to help her.
“My sister was worse off and the agent told us that she would only help on condition that we pay her. I persevered at work but by paying the agent instead of sending money home to support our family.
“I have been asking the agent for (a refund of) the Sh180,000 I paid for an alternative job but she told me that I did not incur any expense during my travel so I should not ask her,” she said.
Nation.africa has since established that several other women are facing difficulties in the Middle East country, decrying harsh working conditions with frustrations and harassment from their bosses and also their agents in Kenya and Turkey but have nowhere to turn to.
Several of them get stranded after escaping from their rogue bosses to seek refuge at the homes of some Kenyan well-wishers.
Narrating her ordeal to Nation.africa, Ms Eunice Magori who hails from Kisii County said that immediately after she arrived in Turkey, her bosses confiscated her passport and she worked without a salary for four months.
The women, the majority of whom travelled to Turkey through Kenyan agents with the connection of Turkish agents work as house helps and nannies.
One of the well-wishers, a Kenyan living in Turkey who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from authorities, said the women are usually abandoned by their agents as soon as they land in the foreign country.
He called on Kenyan authorities to intervene urgently before the impact gets as bad as has been witnessed in other Middle East countries.
According to him, many Kenyan women started moving to Turkey in 2011 after being promised jobs with good money.
He explained that many of those usually sent to work in the Diyarbakır and Hatay areas are most affected.
“The passports are our legal identification documents in Turkey so no one is supposed to take them from you. The bosses are holding the passport to continue retaining the workers even as they subject them to harsh working conditions,” he said.
He added that agents based in Turkey always threatened them whenever they demanded their passports.
The well-wisher raised his fear of being suspected of being a trafficker for supporting needy women.
Some workers had complained about working for over 17 hours without a break and being locked in the house for months.
They claimed that their bosses do not want them to associate with their Kenyan colleagues and have restricted their communications on the phone.
“Women are abandoning their abusive bosses and coming for refuge at my home and the Turkish authorities might mistakenly brand me a criminal. I rescued a lady today and received another distress call after a week. It is becoming dangerous as more continue to suffer,” he said.
The agent who was in charge of Ms Magori’s recruitment declined to comment on the matter.
However, Nation.africa reached out to a recruitment agent based in Nairobi to clarify their operations.
An agent, Ms Dorice Nyamancha, who is not the agency involved in Ms Magori’s recruitment, said there are many firms in the business and it was wrong for workers to accuse all agents.
She said there are just a few agents in the business that have such issues.
“We have had complaints from our clients and moved to address them to ensure they are comfortable at their work. In some cases, we have relocated workers from abusive bosses,” she said.
She said the workers pay for their passport processing fees while the bosses pay for their air tickets and residence permits, which are recovered from the employee’s pay.
“Most of them travel to Turkey legally and after signing a two-year contract and an agreement including their consent to have the debt deducted from their salaries,” she said.
Ms Nyamancha said it is common for employers to detain the worker’s passport until they clear their debt when they resign.
She added that the boss is supposed to pay the workers half of their salaries as agreed in the contract. The workers are paid between Sh70,000 and Sh75,000.
According to the Permanent Secretary, State Department of Labor and Skills Development Shadrack Mwadime, many Kenyans wishing to travel abroad cannot afford to raise money to process their passports and air tickets and that is how they end up being vulnerable to their sponsors.
Addressing journalists in Kilifi recently, Mr Mwadime asked the youth to always verify agents through the National Employment Authority website.
“The National Youth Enterprise Fund is giving soft loans to Kenyans who wish to migrate and take up the opportunities. The salary abroad is between Sh150,000 to Sh200,000 and if someone has taken a loan they can pay once or if they want they can stagger it in three months,” he said.
