Youth need 'counseling' about going to work abroad

Some call it fleeing the ‘barren' country for ‘greener pastures'. Others call it kukuba kyeyo. And the youth look at it as the ultimate opportunity that can grow their cash stacks and deliver them from a world of poverty.

This ‘thing' of going abroad. But they are all mistaken. Or they have been lied to and need "guidance" about what exactly happens immediately those who leave reach the ‘money lands'.

A new report by Platform for Labour Action (PLA) calls for "sensitization and counselling" of young people in Uganda, in regard to this fallacy, saying "more and more Ugandans will continue to be duped and trafficked into modern slavery in the Middle East", unless the misconception is erased.

Funded by the NGO (PLA) to proffer recommendations to combat human trafficking in Uganda, the report says "there is a general misconception in minds of most Ugandan youth that the money they can't make here (in Uganda) they will make abroad."

"You have young graduates lobbying unauthorized ‘labour recruitment firms' in Kampala every day to just take them abroad. Some have marginal skills, no expertise at all, but are pushing to go work abroad," the report says.

That is when the ‘sharks' strike and take advantage of the situation.

"Majority of these young men and women are promised ‘decent' work in hotels, bars and other sectors. Some who have bits of qualification are promised work that matches their education. But there is a total variation in the jobs they were promised and the jobs they are given on reaching these countries," Dr. Dauda Waiswa from the faculty of social sciences at Makerere University said.

"Majority (over 90%) are taken into domestic labour. Some, mainly the women and girls, are taken into prostitution. Others are made to work with little or no pay. They can't complain because they never signed work contracts, and because their passports have been withdrawn," Moses Binoga, the coordinator in the office to combat human trafficking at the internal affairs ministry, said.

The level of dehumanization is too much that when they finally escape this slavery they don't even have a coin to transport them back. Last year, government had to facilitate a return of seventeen girls who were stranded in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh.

Police records (2013 annual police report) estimate that over 800 Ugandans are trafficked mainly to the Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The deputy director of Interpol in Uganda Benson Oyo-Nyeko, borrowing the report's recommendation, said government had a task to educate its youth about the "challenges of working abroad".

He called for "massive sensitization and the need to tell these stories" (of people who have been stranded abroad) to the young generation so "they remove this craze of going to work abroad from their heads when it is not clear what type of jobs they will be engaged in."

"Recently, we stopped a group of youth at Entebbe (International Airport) going abroad because they didn't have clear reasons they were travelling. But they didn't take our caution seriously. Later, we apprehended them in Kenya, trying to go abroad," he said.

Last year, Government banned exportation of domestic labour to the Middle East.  

The report said family members, relatives and friends were the main facilitators of this vice. It called for reconciliation of the provisions in the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, 2009 with the provisions of the Penal Code to ease the prosecution of suspects and the implementation of penalties against human trafficking perpetrators.

Milton Turyasiima, the commissioner for external employment services at the gender ministry, called for stronger regional cooperation to curb the vice.