Push Factors Forcing The Youth To Seek Employment there
BY MOSES OKETAYOT
Labour externalization in the country has become a lucrative business for the stakeholders, whereby the biggest number
flying out of the country for work in the Middle East are the youth. On what pulls the girls and women to travel abroad for
domestic work, Mundeyi Simon, the Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Internal Affairs says that they are many reasons,
which include the quest for employment. “They think that life outside there is better and that they will get money to live a better life and
send back home to their relatives,” Mundeyi explained. According to Mundeyi, they are lured by the labour export companies
that pay all the travel costs, which are unfortunately deducted when they start earning. Mundeyi reveals that out of the 3,000
passports processed daily at the ministry, 65% of them are for women seeking to travel to the Middle East for labour, with 98% being
single mothers. Mundeyi also revealed that there are between 300 to 600 departures of women and few men to the Gulf States travelling for labour.
The movements are also seasonal according to Mundeyi. The government is already doing enough to reduce on the number of people travelling for labour according to Mundeyi, by popularizing initiatives like the Parish Development Model (PDM), prioritizing mainly, the youth and women.
There is also a sensitization drive by the different ministerial departments and agencies to show the women that there is better life home compared to going outside the country and promotion of free education by government geared towards skills attainment.
Mundeyi opines that there is need for enforcement of by-laws in the districts so that families that do not take their children to school but marry them off at early ages are penalized. He also says that there is need for the government to develop the villages. Mundeyi explained that their contract as the ministry of internal affairs with the girls stop at the point of departure at the airport. He however notes that those who go through organized labour export companies are not tortured but the ones that operate illegally.
He further said that the government through the Ministry of Labour, Gender and Social Development has engaged
with their counterparts in the Middle East to ensure that the worker’s rights are protected.
The Deputy National Coordinator Prevention of Trafficking in Person, Agnes Igoye explained that; “Uganda is an origin, transit and destination country for trafficking. This means that there are victims of trafficking who originate from Uganda, there are victims of trafficking who transit through Uganda from other countries and then there are some people who are trafficked into Uganda from other countries.” She added that both
internal and external trafficking happens within the country. She noted that the most common cases of external forms of trafficking points
are to the Middle East because of the various available opportunities for employment.
On the many cases of exploitation of domestic workers especially women, Igoye says these stem from the employer and employee living under
one roof 24/7. “Many of them are running from domestic violence. They will even tell you that I would rather go outside and I am
mistreated than being mistreated by this man, family or clan,” she stated adding that most of the women go to the Middle East due to the pressure faced at home. She called for a mindset change and a pre-work orientation noting that there is need to know the challenges of the work place, like abuse at work but not necessarily torture as it is portrayed in the media. Igoye cited that most of the cases of torture stems from some of the women who go through recruitment agencies but on arrival hatch plans of running away from their employers.
She advised people travelling abroad for work to go through licensed recruitment agencies and that there is need to differentiate between trafficking and abuse at places of work. “Labour externalization is not trafficking. There will always be challenges at the work place,” she
clarified.
According to Igoye, there are few cases of men being exploited because most of the forms of abuses are gender in nature and very few men are sexually exploited compared to the women. She concluded that the magic bullet to ending abuse of domestic workers is the global mindset change on how we view domestic workers, as people with dignity who keep homes up and running. According to her, the fight against trafficking is a continuous one, which involves training of frontline workers in the sector and public awareness campaigns.
