The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah, has tasked the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development to respond to concerns raised by MPs on torture meted on Ugandans working abroad.
The Deputy Speaker made the directive following concerns by
Mukono Municipality MP, Hon. Betty Nambooze, who called for stringent action
against non-licensed labour export companies.
“The minister must come with statistics and make an
explanation to the House. There are errant companies that are not licensed to
carry out labour export but are still doing it. We shall debate and get a way
forward on this,” said Oulanyah.
According to Nambooze, many girls working outside the country
have been tortured by their employers and cannot return to Uganda because
their passports are confiscated.
“We do not have space at our embassy in Abu Dhabi; so our
girls just sleep on the floor. I would like to request you, Mr. Speaker, to
order that our Government does everything possible to immediately bring back
these girls,” Nambooze said.
Nambooze who raised these concerns during a sitting of
Parliament, Thursday, 11 July 2019, called for urgent establishment of a public
funded labour export agency adding that it would provide a safe mode of labour
export.
Nambooze said that there is also need to investigate the
immigration officials.
“A girl from Mukono who was not yet 18 years old was
offered a job abroad and immigration officials forged a passport and gave her
an adult age of 22 years and she is being tortured too,” she added.
Oulanyah, however, noted that the issues concerning export of
labour ought to be segregated saying that, “a good percentage of Ugandans
abroad have good jobs and settled in well, while those who had been transferred
by dubious companies were facing hard time abroad”.
“We should not over generalize this debate but rather
separate the issues and deal with them specifically. We need a system of
informing respective embassies whenever our children go to seek labour abroad
so that they can keep track of them,” said Oulanyah.
