{{Kampala}} — {Despite a ban on recruiting domestic workers for employment overseas, licensed and unlicensed agencies continue to recruit Ugandans for employment abroad, which has turned into trafficking, a new report indicates.}
The 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report released on Tuesday by the US Department of State notes in some of these cases, there is complicity of government officials. This “official complicity hindered government oversight of labour recruitment agencies,” the report reads in part.
As a result, the report notes, Ugandan women are fraudulently recruited for employment in the Middle East where they are exploited and forced into prostitution in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
“Kampala-based labour recruiters and brokers also operated in Rwanda, and Nairobi-based recruiters were active in Uganda, recruiting Ugandans and resident Rwandans and Kenyans through fraudulent offers of employment in the Middle East and Asia,” the report adds.
The report ranks Uganda in ‘Tier 2.’ In this category are countries whose governments do not fully comply with the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.
It also indicates that Uganda is a source and destination country for people subjected to forced labour and sexual exploitation.
The State minister for Labour, Dr Kamanda Bataringaya, said: “It’s good the matter has been raised. We shall definitely follow up.” He, however, said the ministry had not seen the report and thus was unable to comment in detail.
The report urged the Ugandan government to consider opening a Foreign Mission in Kuwait, to provide better assistance to Ugandan victims of human trafficking.
Currently, Uganda operates missions in the Middle East only in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The report also urged government to step up funding to its foreign missions to be able to offer consular services to Ugandans abroad.
The Monitor
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