By Joseph Elunya, Geoffrey Gathoni & Esther Namirimu
Ugandan immigration and security officials are part of a syndicate that traffics young girls to the Middle East where they are forced to work as sex slaves, our investigations have revealed.
The gang traffics per day an average fifty Ugandan girls across the border to Kenya where they connect to countries such as United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
A victim of the criminal gang who spent a year in United Arab Emirates explains that she responded to an advert on a local radio station in the eastern district of Mbale in Uganda that promised lucrative jobs in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
The victim who prefers not to be named for fear of retribution from the gang explains that she was made to travel to Kampala from where her travel documents were to be processed.
Upon reaching she was allegedly taken to a house in Kireka a suburb of Kampala where she found over 30 ladies some who had spent more than three months locked inside a house waiting for the travel documents to be processed.
She too, spent a month locked up in the house with other ladies and each day, they would coach them on things such as what to say if they are intercepted on the way to the airport and how to conduct themselves once they reach Dubai.
The normal process for getting a passport in Uganda is filing an application online and then going for the interview but in her case, the travel documents including the 90 day visas to United Arab Emirates were delivered to them from the house where they were without any of their involvement.
According to the victim, the journey from Kampala to Jomo Kenyata International Airport took three days and involved use of passenger minibuses, which they boarded, from the old taxi park to Malaba border post.
At Malaba border post, they were instructed not to use their passports but process temporal travel pass using national identification cards from a particular immigration official.
On crossing the border they were told to spend a night at a house in Eldoret to avoid being tracked and on the third day, made their way to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi. At the Airport they were again directed to a person who would help secure their boarding pass.
On reaching Dubai they were picked by a bus, which drove them to a house where they found other Ugandan ladies.
Immediately they reached, a Uganda lady they only identify as Senga allegedly withdrew their passports and told them that they will have to do work as sex workers to pay back her money, which she used, for processing their passports and visas.
She regained her freedom after being forced to work as a sex slave for more than three months by contacting an activist back home who notified the authorities in Saudi Arabia of their plight.
Her story is similar to that of several other victims of human trafficking interviewed for this story.
The victims accuse the police of working hand in hand with the traffickers who force them to work as sex slaves.
They accuse a police officer working with Interpol who goes by the alias Mr. Prime Uganda on Facebook of colluding with those who tormented and enslaved them.
According to the victims, interviewed for this story, whenever they send out a distress call on social media the police officer (Mr. Prime Ugandan) responds to them and acts so good to them like he is helping them.
He then gives them a contact of a lady based in Dubai who would help them but once the girls get to the lady’s house in Dubai she retains their passports and then engages them in prostitution and the money paid to her.
The victims say Mr. Prime Uganda who our investigations reveal is at the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) continues to threaten them even after being rescued.
When one lady identified only as Florence was rescued from sex slavery Mr. Prime Ugandan threatened to kill her if she dares to speak of what she went through.
We have since established that Mr. ‘Prime Ugandan’ also called and threatened an official from one of the organizations that rescues the girls.
“He promised to shoot them as soon as they get to Entebbe International Airport.
She had to be protected by a platoon of police officers who sneaked her out of the airport and too date she lives in hiding”. Said the official who preferred anonymity.
The official reveals that powerful people who include ministers, senior police and army officers are involved in trafficking young girls to the Middle East.
She names some of the companies that are involved in trafficking as Forbes International and Al-Saud Agencies Limited.
A statehouse employee (names withheld) who is involved in anti-human trafficking operations says preliminary investigations done by the unit indicate high connivance between immigration officials and traffickers.
She says immigration officials help arranging and processing the travel documents and refer them to their accomplice from the Airport who secure for them boarding pass to their destinations.
The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery in its report published in March 2022 on trends of human trafficking amongst Ugandan migrant workers in the Middle East indicates that 89% of Ugandan workers are subject to human trafficking.
The findings of the report were based on interviews with Ugandan workers who have previously worked or were working in the Middle East at the time of conducting the research.
The findings suggest around 89 percent of Ugandans were subjected to conditions consistent with definitions of human trafficking. A correlation was also observed from the data between unethical recruitment practices and the likelihood of exploitation of workers.
According to the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, there has been a rapid surge in the number of Ugandans travelling to the Middle East, growing fourfold from an average of 24,086 between 2016 and 2021 to 84,966 in 2022.
