A 40-year-old Kenyan mother of five, Esther Wanja Muthoni, has been sentenced to 100 lashes and a one-year banishment in Saudi Arabia after giving birth to a child outside of marriage.
Muthoni, who had been working legally in the Gulf nation as a domestic worker, housekeeper, and nanny, has spent over a year fighting to return home to Kenya with her one-year-old son, Abudy.
How her ordeal began
Muthoni became pregnant following a brief relationship with an Egyptian man who has since left Saudi Arabia. She gave birth to her son in August 2025 while residing in staff accommodation.
Her situation came to the attention of authorities after a supervisor discovered the newborn and took her to a hospital, where police subsequently detained and questioned her over the pregnancy.
Court proceedings without legal representation
Following her detention, Muthoni was prosecuted before a three-judge panel in a Riyadh criminal court. According to court documents, while she was provided with a court translator during the multiple hearings, she was not given a state-sponsored lawyer to represent her.
The court ultimately convicted her of having sexual relations outside of marriage, an offence punishable under Saudi Arabia’s interpretation of Islamic law, and handed down the sentence of 100 lashes alongside a one-year banishment order. In Saudi Arabia, corporal punishment for women involves being seated and clothed while being struck across the body with a bamboo stick.
Stranded with a newborn
After giving birth, Muthoni was barred from returning to her employer’s staff housing. Left without shelter, she lived at a petrol station in Riyadh that had become a makeshift gathering point for other migrant mothers waiting to be deported with their children.
Although she was later provided with housing following media attention, she remained barred from leaving the country while her legal case was pending, causing her Kenyan emergency travel documents to expire in the meantime.
Speaking in an interview prior to the finalisation of her sentence, Muthoni voiced deep fear over the physical punishment awaiting her.
“I am so afraid. I don’t think I can endure those lashes,” she said, maintaining that she did not deserve the sentence.
Despite the severity of the ruling, Muthoni chose not to appeal, explaining that her sole priority is reuniting with her four other children waiting for her back in Kenya. “It is the only way that can take me back home to my children,” she said.
Human rights groups condemn the ruling
The sentence has drawn sharp criticism from human rights advocates, particularly in light of Saudi Arabia’s 2020 announcement claiming it would end flogging as a judicial punishment. While discretionary flogging was curtailed, corporal punishment remains active for certain offences under Islamic law.
Maryam Aldossari, acting director of the UK-based rights organisation ALQST, condemned the sentence as an act of violence and urged authorities to allow Muthoni to return home. She noted the stark contradiction between Saudi leaders projecting an image of modernising women’s rights and the reality of courts sentencing a mother to 100 lashes.
Rights groups also warn that laws criminalising pregnancy outside marriage disproportionately endanger female migrant workers from African nations like Kenya, many of whom already face severe vulnerability, abuse, and barriers to birth registration for children born abroad. It remains unclear when the sentence will be carried out or when Muthoni and her young son will finally be permitted to travel back to Kenya.
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