The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control has revealed a scandal involving labor export companies unlawfully withholding more than 8,000 passports .
According to Simon Mudenyi, the mouthpiece of the Internal Affairs Ministry, these labor firms have held passports for most victims, especially girls, dreaming of working in the Middle East. He says the immigration office has received various complaints of labor companies refusing to return client’s passports until they are awarded contracts as earlier agreed.
Mudenyi says: “Many girls who applied to work abroad have had their passports snatched. The companies claim they’re waiting for contracts, but we’ve received countless complaints. A total of 8,000 passports are being held by labour exporters,”
Adding salt to the wound, Mudenyi says there are also reports that some people paid money to work in the Arab world but are stuck waiting. Some are even asked to cough up more cash to reclaim their passports, despite having paid already.
When contracts are given to them, they again ask the girls to pay more money for passports they already processed. In our investigations, we discovered that one of the companies in Kampala is holding 2000 passports in their office for Ugandans.
He adds ” We are not going to hesitate to carry out operations to retrieve these passports that are being held illegally by these companies.”
Following shocking reports of abuse, exploitation, and even organ theft from Ugandans working abroad, the government, laid a list of demands for these companies show proof of employment contracts and appointment letters before they can ship workers off.
However, this action has caused chaos with companies lacking the required safety documents, leading to delays.
