A Kenyan mother in Saudi Arabia has reportedly been sentenced to 100 lashes after giving birth outside marriage

Under the Saudi sharia law system, sex outside marriage is a criminal offence. But it is women who are disproportionately targeted, say rights groups, which have condemned the punishment as an “act of violence”

Although many unmarried women give birth in Saudi Arabia, rights groups say the Kenyan mother’s case only came to light because she had been taken to a hospital, which are required to report single women giving birth to the authorities

“Most of them give birth at home, that’s why they aren’t reported,” said Ekaterina Porras Sivolobova, founder of Do Bold, a non-profit organisation advocating for migrant workers’ rights in the Gulf

The Kenyan mother, Esther Wanja Muthoni, was a domestic worker recruited to work as housekeeper and nanny in Saudi Arabia. She reportedly became pregnant during a brief relationship with an Egyptian man and said that the child’s father had since left the country[…]
Maryam Aldossari, acting director at the UK-based rights organisation ALQST (al-qist means “justice” in Arabic), said the ruling was an act of violence and the woman should have been sent back to Kenya and not punished

“It just shows the hypocrisy behind so-called Saudi reform. We know MBS [Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince] has been trying to show the world that Saudi is becoming a modern country that empowers women, yet we see the court sentence a mother to 100 lashes,” said Aldossari

In April 2020, Saudi announced a reform to end flogging as a judicial punishment. However, it only applied to ta’zir offences, where judges have discretion over punishments. Although most flogging sentences fell into this category, flogging remained a possible punishment for certain hudud (fixed punishments under Islamic law) offences, such as alcohol consumption and adultery, ALQST said in a report in 2021