Enslaved Ugandan girls name and shame tormentors

July 25, 2019 in Companies, Foreign News, Policy by Editor

A group of Ugandan girls trapped in Saudi Arabia are crying out for help as the labour export firms that took them to Riyadh continue hold them against their will in deplorable conditions. companies

In a video posted on Whatsapp, the half-clad girls claim they are being held in confinement at a place they cannot identify without air conditioning or adequate food and water. They cite Kitintale based Bantu Establishments and Top Notch Recruitment Services Uganda Limited as the firms that took them out of Uganda. The girls say while their employers released them, the firms are holding them hostage as they try to extort money from them or force them into new employment contracts.

“It is the firms that brought us here that are holding us, not the employers to whom we had been assigned. They have confiscated our clothes and locked us in this facility whose location in Saudi Arabia we don’t even know. We are out of food and even the AC has been switched off,” the girls lament citing the case two firms.

They also cite the cite the case of their colleague, Amina Kambugu who was taken out of the holding facility to an unknown destination. A video shot of the facility shows doors that are locked. They pinpointed an individual called Madam Esta as the person responsible for Bantu Establishments.

Both firms are registered on the Ministry of Labour and Gender’s External Employment Management Information System (EEMIS) with labour export certificates valid until May 2020.

256BN called 256 703 950 661 the telephone contact listed against Bantu Establishment in EEMIS and the call was received by a lady who declined to divulge her identity. She first asked whether we were from the Ministry of Labour before claimong the problem the girls were complaining about had been resolved and was no longer news. Pressed to explain how the issue had been resolved, she hang up on us.

+256-200-908802, the number listed against Top Notch Recruitment in the EEMIS was switched off when we called as was the number for Mr. Martin Wandera, the Director for Labour at the ministry for Gender and labour.