A group of 10 Kenyans are suing the Kenyan government over their trafficking into Cambodia and detention and forced labor within the country.
The lawsuit, filed in Nairobi on Monday, states that the group is petitioning on behalf of more than 600 Kenyan citizens who were reportedly trafficked into Cambodian scam businesses and are now stuck in the country following raids and mass escapes on alleged scam businesses since January.
According to the lawsuit, the Cambodian government urges them to leave before the end of this month or they risk legal consequences.
The lead lawyer, Danstan Omari, said the 10 petitioners were all still stuck in Cambodia because their passports were confiscated by the companies where they worked, so they had filed the lawsuit in absentia.
“The matter raises authority to national attention,” he told Mekong Independent. “We expect that the Kenyan government is likely to respond because this is a matter that the Kenyan public was not aware, [so] now we are aware. … There are Kenyans outside of the country who are suffering.”
Omari said the case demonstrates complicity between the Kenyan and Cambodian governments that led to the trafficking of hundreds of Kenyan citizens. However, this lawsuit is aimed at pressuring the Kenyan government to take care of its citizens.
“It is about the responsibility, the constitutional mandate, of the Kenyan government to ensure if any citizen from Kenya goes out of the country and has a problem, that then becomes the problem of the Kenyan government,” he told a reporter.
The lawsuit, reviewed by Mekong Independent, states that Kenyans suffered food deprivation, torture and even sexual assault at the hands of companies in Cambodia. The suit includes a list of more than 40 named Kenyans who were reportedly still trying to leave the country, though Omari said he had heard of more than 600 people requiring assistance based on WhatsApp groups among Kenyans still in Cambodia.
“Several petitioners are victims of stabbings and internal bleeding to which they are nursing open wounds and their lives are at risk and need immediate medical treatment,” the suit says.
A reporter obtained the lawsuit but is not publicly sharing it as the document contains private information about the petitioning Kenyans who are still stuck in Cambodia.
The case further claims that the Kenyan government did not do enough to assist Kenyans and implies that Kenyan government officials actively jeopardized their citizens’ ability to leave.
“The Petitioners contacted the Kenyan Embassy who in turn provided minimal to no aid and discouragingly so, the Principal Secretary for the State Department of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs have flung around misleading statements that the Petitioners have refused to return to Kenya.”
According to the case, the Cambodian government reportedly warned Kenyans that they need to return to their country by Saturday or face legal action.
“The Petitioners have been issued by authorities in Cambodia a notice to return to their country Kenya before 28th February 2026, failure to which they shall immediately be taken legal action against and forthwith jailed,” the text said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Touch Sokhak did not respond to a request to confirm this information on Thursday.
The suit asks the Kenyan government to provide immediate emergency assistance and shelter to the more than 600 Kenyans still in Cambodia and for the government to cover their costs of leaving the country.
Mekong Independent sent emailed requests for comment to a number of Kenyans named in the lawsuit. One man, who asked not to use his real name, responded in email and WhatsApp messages, saying he was stuck in a compound again, having been brought there and “held” without work after he had escaped in January. When a reporter asked where he was, he sent a location in Koh Kong province’s Prek Khsach town — the same location as construction worker protests earlier this month.
“I have already contacted an embassy representative who promised to get back to me, but I have not received any response yet,” he said in an email. “Escaping is possible, but the main challenge is transportation from this location.”
He said that around 70 Africans from Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda were being held in that location, but not forced to work. He said he heard rumors that he would be taken to Laos next, but he wasn’t sure what was happening.
“The Chinese individuals controlling this place have refused to let us leave and have confiscated our passports. We are only given white rice once a day, and conditions here are very difficult.”