Selestinian Kemoli fled to the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh in 2020, terrified and desperate.

Mrs. Kemoli worked in Saudi Arabia as a maid. Like many Eastern Africans in her situation, she said, she was abused. She told the Labor Attalé Embassy that her boss had knocked her breast with a raringing knife, forced her to drink urine and raped her.

Broken and herself, she wanted help home to her two children in Kenya.

“You’re beautiful,” he replied, and Mrs. Kemoli replied Labor Attalé, Robinson Juma Twang.

Mr. Twang offered help, she said, but with a catch. “I’ll sleep with you, in the same way as your boss slept with you,” he remembers saying.

More women, who did not know each other and lived in separate counties, told the New York Times that when they had abandoned the abuse in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Twang had asked for sex or money or pressed them to get into a sexual job to pay for a ticket house.

Lawyers say they have collected similar accounts from numerous women who included other Embassy officials. They said that Mr. Twang is just one example of how these officials exploit women in their most vulnerable moments.

Businessman William Ruto, President Kenya, commenting on the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he had no knowledge of such complaints or any harassment of the Embassy officials.

He came on the phone and said what the women were saying about him, Mr. Twang replied, “I can’t get involved in such a story.” He said he was retired.

Women, interviewed throughout Kenya, gave consistent accounts. They said that the Kenyan officials offended them and questioned them if they needed help, even when they arrived in the poor embassy, ​​the visible signs of abuse.

Mrs. Kemoli, for example, still has a scar over his chest and hand.

“They didn’t care about us,” Faith Gathuo said. She left Saudi Arabia in 2014 and said that when she sought help after she was beaten and raped, another ambassador official demanded money and anal sex.

Tens of thousands of Kenyans go to Saudi Arabia each year, where they can earn more than in their country, which is in prolonged economic crisis. Hundreds died. Many have endured the abuse more, disappeared unpaid or wounded in a country that has no effective legal protection for East African workers.

Times investigation last month discovered These powerful East African and Saudi figures make money from the work system that sends these workers abroad.

When things go wrong, these latest interviews show, other powerful officials seek to profit.

More women identified Mr. Twang. Mrs. Kemoli said he was looking for sex. Two others said that when they asked for help, he beat them up and told them to return to their employers.

The fourth woman, Feith Shimila Murunga, said the boss beat her and poured hot water on her as a punishment. When she sought the help of the embassy, ​​she said, Mr. Twang told her that if she did not want to return to her employer, she might become a prostitute.

Fair lawyers gave the written accounts of six other women who said that Mr. Twang had refused to help or told them to get into sex work.

“No one considers them responsible,” said Bonareri Okeig, who until recently was the coordinator of the program in Global Justice Group, an organization for legal assistance that helped women document their experiences in the hope that they would receive a fee.

While the name of Mr. Twang has appeared several times, workers and their families also described difficult experiences with other officials.

The relatives of three workers who died in Saudi Arabia said that officials in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs had requested cash in order to bring the bodies home. Hussein Mohamed, a spokesman for the president, said that families sometimes ask themselves “to be drawn” because the Ministry cannot afford to pay all bodies.

But relatives who returned to the Ministry with lawyers said they were told they didn’t really have to pay.

Years after returning from Saudi Arabia, Mrs. Gathuo still has a gap in a smile from the moment she said, her boss had broken her face under pressure. After raping her and impregnating her, she said, she fled.

The Embassy official offered to help, she said, if she paid him and had anal sex with him. She agreed, she said, and gave him everything she had – about $ 500. But he never sent her home. In the end, Saudi Arabia deported her.

Mr. Mohamed, a presidential spokesman, did not answer questions about Mrs. Gathuo’s account.

Mrs. Kemoli, who said that the employer raped her and cut her, said she refused Mr. Twang’s proposal for sex. A well -connected cousin in Kenya eventually contacted the International Migration Organization, which bought her ticket home in 2021.

Mrs. Kemoli said she was never fully paid for her work in Saudi Arabia. She said she was suffering from insomnia and often falls apart, seemingly ignorant. She said she tried suicide.

Sometimes, she said, her children ask about her scars.

“I don’t know what to tell them,” she said.