Kenya Kept a Diplomat in His Job Despite Years of Sex Abuse Accusations
President William Ruto faces pressure after a Times investigation showed that his government downplayed or ignored the mistreatment of women working in Saudi Arabia.
Kenya’s government received complaints that a diplomat was sexually abusing women, according to a U.N. official and a labor leader. But officials allowed the diplomat to continue working with migrant women.
The diplomat, Robinson Juma Twanga, was the longtime labor attaché in Saudi Arabia. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has built his economic plan around sending more workers abroad. That made Mr. Twanga a powerful figure for the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, mostly women, working in the kingdom.
Hundreds of Kenyan workers have died in Saudi Arabia in recent years. Autopsies describe unexplained injuries and mysterious falls. Many women have reported rape and other physical violence, which often goes unpunished.
The New York Times reported this year that women who sought help from the Kenyan Embassy said that Mr. Twanga demanded sex and money. Some said that he had told them to become sex workers to pay for plane tickets home.
Kenyan officials said at the time that they had not heard such claims.
But Kenya’s labor ministry received several complaints about Mr. Twanga and discussed how to handle them in 2019, but took no action, according to a U.N. official. A Kenyan union leader said that, in 2020, he reported abuse accusations to the government.
Alfred N. Mutua, the labor secretary, would not say what the government knew about the accusations. He said Mr. Twanga retired under the previous administration.
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