Waithira Njuguna, currently Second Secretary at the Embassy of Kenya, hired Lucy to work as a live-in domestic worker in her home in Rockville, MD. She signed a contract with Lucy that established a 40 hour work week and guaranteed hourly pay of $8.84, plus paid time off and health care coverage. Waithira told Lucy that she could study in the US, and that she’d even help pay for her school, and get her medical care that Lucy badly needed due to a recent accident. 

However, Lucy faced a much different reality. Waithira took her passport, demanded that Lucy work over 16 hours a day, and paid her a mere $250 a month. Lucy had her communication and movement strictly monitored, and could not freely leave the residence on her own, even when she needed to get herself medicine. She was denied medical care—at one point she was forced to remove her own stitches from her mouth. When Lucy expressed that she did not want to work for Waithira any longer, she was threatened with arrest, deportation and even harm to her family. Lucy was also forced to clean the homes of other officials at the Embassy of Kenya and cook large orders of food without pay.

After 4 years of abuse, Lucy was able to connect with CASA’s Committee of Women Seeking Justice and escape in March 2014. She has asked that Waithira pay her $210,000 in backwages owed to her. Waithira and the Kenyan Embassy have not responded to any correspondence to date. 

“I feel what happened to me was not right, and should not happen to any domestic worker,” says Lucy. “I will keep fighting to make sure we are heard, and that we are respected.”

Will you stand with Lucy today? We need your voice to help deliver a united message that abusing domestic workers is unacceptable.

Tell Waithira Njuguna and the Embassy of Kenya: pay Lucy what she is owed!