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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
Kaneza Joseline (not her real name) recounts how her ordeal started. She was serving lunch in a busy Kigali restaurant where she was employed, when some regular customers, a Kenyan man and woman, approached her about taking a better job in Kenya. In her broken Swahili she indulged in a conversation that would redirect her path over the next few weeks. They promised her $100 USD per month to work fewer hours as a chef in an undisclosed restaurant that they purportedly ran in Kenya. After encouragement from her friends, Kaneza arrived in Nairobi to be welcomed by an unknown woman who had been given all of her information. She was immediately taken to a residential home, given work to wash their dogs, prepare children to go to school, cook for them, wash their cloths and other chores. All of which was the complete opposite of the job description originally reported to her by the couple in the Kigali restaurant. The owners started inquiring about her family and hurling insults towards her ethnic identity. Kaneza called her friends in Kigali regularly, hoping that as soon as she had been paid the $100 USD she would find her way home soon. After several weeks Kaneza was informed that she would be sent up country to an undisclosed location where her “work would begin”. In her efforts to resist, she was beaten, tied up with rope, and repeatedly spat upon. What had began, as a promising new career opportunity had become enslavement. Kaneza feared for her life.
Response and intervention
However, law enforcement was not involved in Kaneza's emancipation. Kaneza called friends in Kigali, Rwanda who in return contact another friend in Nairobi who was able to pick Kaneza up at a clinic. Kaneza was then brought to the the Rwandan Embassy in Nairobi. The Rwandan Embassy in Nairobi then assisted in Kaneza's return to Rwanda. Due to the injuries inflicted upon her Kaneza was taken to a nearby health clinic. While there she pushed on towards her freedom and recounted the story to a nurse. She refused to leave with her captures and her owners fled the clinic when they realized they might be caught. Without at doubt Kaneza was lucky. From the clinic she was able to call home to Rwanda and her friends were able arrange for a friend to locate her. The person was able to deliver her to the Rwandan Embassy in Nairobi, where she was assisted in her return to Rwanda. With her eyes swollen and new scars added to the existing ones from the machetes of the genocide, as she is the only member of her family to have escaped the horrors of 1994, she returned safely home. Kaneza has returned to Rwanda.