Traffickers are hunting me down - Sembatya
Jul 30, 2020
Sembatya who is working with the Uganda police to repatriate victims and reunite them with their families, claims he is currently under threat.
As we commemorate world human trafficking day, Uganda is one of the countries worldwide that has been much affected by trafficking in persons.
According to this year's theme, "Rethinking trafficking in persons, victims protection strategies post COVID-19," several migrants are still stranded abroad especially those who were trafficked out of the country.
We have to head many cries of victims across the globe including Ugandan housemaids in Arab countries as a result of torture, sexual harassment among others. In most cases, victims cry to the government and companies which took them in vain.
By the time they start complaining, some are still in their boss' homes, others at deportation centers and others at the various embassies.
Sometimes, families of the victims are vulnerable and helpless to them.
Because the government cannot work alone in repatriating victims from different countries, there are some Anti-human trafficking NGOs that have come up in partnership with the government and police to repatriate victims, especially from Arab countries.
However, the people who have been engaged in repatriation are allegedly being threatened by the traffickers.
Alex Sembatya, is one of the people who have been repatriating victims from Oman, Dubai, Saudi Arabia other countries. Sembatya who is working with the Uganda police to repatriate victims and reunite them with their families, claims he is currently under threat.
According to him, he is receiving threats from unknown people who want to harm him and his family and he suspects them to be traffickers because of the work he is engaged in.
On different occasions, he alleges that unknown people followed his car with guns while heading home from police after reporting human trafficking cases. After realizing he was being followed up, he rushed to a police station for his safety.
The next time, he was approached by one of the suspected traffickers, who ordered him to stop talking about the business, as it's where they earn a living, revealing that their business is an externalization of labour. He opened a case of threatening violence on Ref/SD20/10/06/2020.
Sembatya has asked the government to help and take over his protection, because he is fighting for the rights of the migrant workers abroad.