A Kenyan woman has been sentenced to 100 lashes in Saudi Arabia for giving birth to a child out of wedlock. Esther Wanja Muthoni became pregnant after a brief affair with an Egyptian national, who abandoned her and fled the country, leaving her to face the legal consequences alone.
In an interview with The New York Times, the woman said she did not deserve such a punishment. The case has prompted reactions and criticism from human rights organizations, which consider the punishment an act of violence against her. In Saudi Arabia, sexual relations outside of marriage are prohibited by law. Hospitals are obliged to report cases when unmarried women present for childbirth, while many others, for fear of punishment, choose to give birth at home, without receiving medical assistance and without registering the birth.
An investigation published by The Guardian in 2024 found that a significant number of foreign women face serious legal consequences after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Despite reforms to the Saudi legal system in 2020, which removed flogging for some categories of offenses, punishment remains provided for offenses classified as hudud, which includes adultery.
The human rights organization ALQST has called Muthoni's sentence an "act of violence," calling for her to be released from prison and returned to Kenya. The case has brought into sharp focus the treatment of foreign women in Saudi Arabia, who can face severe punishments for pregnancies outside of marriage, even when their partners leave and abandon them.
Esther Wanja Muthoni, a 40-year-old Kenyan mother of five working as a domestic worker in Riyadh, has been sentenced by a Saudi court to 100 lashes and one year of banishment for having sex outside marriage. She gave birth to a son in August 2025 after a brief relationship with an Egyptian man who later left the country. The father was not charged.
Muthoni, who had no lawyer and was represented only by a translator, did not appeal the October 2026 ruling by a three-judge panel. She said accepting the sentence was the fastest way to try to return to her other children in Kenya. More than a year after giving birth, she remains stranded in Saudi Arabia. Her exit documents have expired, and it is still unclear when or if the lashes will be carried out. "I am so afraid. I don't think I can endure those lashes," she told The New York Times.
Her case reflects the precarious situation faced by thousands of East African women recruited as nannies and housekeepers in Saudi Arabia. When these workers become pregnant outside marriage, they often become trapped by weak legal protections, documentation barriers for children born out of wedlock, and limited practical consular support.— IVY (@ivymuthe) November 11, 2026
