Peninah Wanjiru from Dondori in Nakuru is still waiting for the day she can hold her four year old daughter again after they were separated during her deportation from Saudi Arabia in March 2025.
The Kenyan mother has now taken another important step in her fight to reunite with her child.
She recently submitted a DNA sample through the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs after raising the required Sh17,000 with the support of friends and well wishers.
The DNA test will confirm her biological relationship with the child, which is one of the key requirements before the process of bringing her daughter back to Kenya can move forward.
Speaking about the situation, Wanjiru said she has completed everything that was requested and is now waiting for the results, which she was told could take about two weeks.
She hopes the process will move quickly so she can finally be reunited with her daughter.
Wanjiru travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2019 to work as a domestic worker after securing a job through a recruitment agency.
She says her employer later became abusive, and in 2021 she became pregnant.
According to Wanjiru, the child’s father was her Nepali boyfriend, who later abandoned her after learning about the pregnancy.
Fearing she would lose her job or face punishment, she kept the pregnancy a secret and later gave birth at home with the assistance of a doctor.
She named her daughter Precious.
Mother and daughter remained together until March 2025 when Wanjiru was deported to Kenya.
She says officials at the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh were informed about the child, but the two were separated before she left Saudi Arabia.
Since then, Precious has remained under the care of a daycare operator in Saudi Arabia.
However, the caregiver later informed Wanjiru that she could no longer continue looking after the child and might be forced to place her in an orphanage if no solution is found.
The outcome of the DNA test is now expected to play a crucial role in determining the next steps toward bringing the young girl back to Kenya and reuniting her with her mother.
