My name is Winnie Linet. I grew up in a big family in western Kenya. In 2013, I left Kenya for the first time to work in Lebanon as a domestic worker under the Kafala system. This is an exploitative system, that ties a migrant’s visa and work permit to their employer’s approval.
I want to tell you what this was like and what motivates young people like me to go and work abroad. Finishing school at seventeen I felt unstoppable, full of energy to pursue my dreams, to study at university and become a journalist. Life seemed uncomplicated and I believed that my dreams would become true.
However, the reality was very different. My mother was the sole breadwinner, supporting me and my five siblings and whilst I passed the exams to study journalism at university, she could not afford the fees. So I worked as a vegetable seller, hawking toys for very little money. Then in a Mpesa shop. Then selling water bottles on the street for 5 Kenyan shillings (4 pence) to survive. I felt that society looked down on me and so I began to hide from my peers who had excelled and gone to university. When a distant relative offered me work abroad, I agreed immediately.
