When Elite Baganda Expose Museveni’s Sycophant Ministers: Mayanja can’t succeed with his lies on Mailo land: AG Kiryowa Kiwanuka is the wrong man for the wrong job

 

Minister Mayanja can’t succeed with his lies on Mailo land 

 https://observer.ug/viewpoint/70826-minister-mayanja-can-t-succeed-with-his-lies-on-mailo-land

August 11, 2021

 

Written by JOSEPH KAYEMBA

 

 

The new junior Lands minister Sam Mayanja has been peddling lies for quite some time, especially about management and ownership of Buganda kingdom’s land.

One wonders whether the appointing authority approves of his assertions. In some of his articles, for instance, he has persistently claimed that Buganda Land Board operates illegally and that the Kabaka has no right to manage what he calls ‘public land.’

By virtue of his position as a senior partner at one of Uganda’s leading law firms, one would expect Mr Mayanja to have used the right channels of seeking court interpretation on whether Buganda Land Board or the Kabaka at large is operating legally. Instead he chose to use print media.

One wonders why he keeps ranting about the same topic and keeps getting precious newspaper space at the government-owned newspaper.

The simple answer is that he is just a smokescreen for the powerful forces that want to grab Buganda’s land.  Mayanja knows that if you consistently tell lies, the public may end up perceiving it as the truth. It is, therefore, in order that we quickly demystify some of these consistent lies.

1. That the 1966 desecration of Buganda kingdom was a revolution.

What happened in 1966 was not a revolution but an illegal coup against the 1962 Constitution. It can’t be sanitized by the word revolution. Revolutions happen by popular uprising against dictators and injustices. There was no popular uprising in 1966. It was just a one man’s show.

2. That Buganda’s land is public land.

Public land means land owned by the government or its affiliated bodies, and that such land is administered by Uganda Land Commission. Even at independence, it was clearly shown that Buganda land is not public land. That’s why Mailo Akenda (9,000 square miles) was never put under the Uganda Land Commission.

It is why Buganda Land Board was set up to specifically administer what I will term as Buganda’s customary land. It is also why when Obote extrapolated it in 1967, he had to put it under Uganda Land Commission and abolished Buganda Land Board to clearly show that he had stolen Buganda’s customary land and made it Uganda’s public land. That was wrong. Where else is customary land in Uganda called public land?

3.  That the 1962 Constitution established Buganda Land Board to take charge of official mailo.

Buganda Land Board of 1962 was established to administer and manage former crown land, now popularly known as Mailo Akenda. Official mailos remained under the offices to which they were allotted because those offices were corporate bodies.

The 350 square miles were under Nkuluze. It was only in 1963 that Ssekabaka Muteesa (the then president of Uganda) asked that Buganda Land Board also manages the rest of the official mailos to the benefit of the offices, apart from the 350 square miles which remained under Nkuluze.

He wanted to streamline the administration and bring uniformity. He was not surrendering the land to become public land.

4. That the current Buganda Land Board is not successor in title to the 1962-1967 Buganda Land Board and, therefore, cannot administer land which the later used to administer.

True, the current BLB may not be successor in title to the 1962 BLB, but the Kabaka of Buganda (not Ronald Muwenda Mutebi), who owns the current BLB wholly and for whom it acts as an agent, is a successor in title to all official mailos. There are rights derived from

The Traditional Rulers (Restitution of Assets and Properties) Act 1993 and the subsequent 2013 agreement between the president of Uganda and the Kabaka of Buganda.

Both the 1993 Act and the 2013 agreement are legally binding and constitutionally sound due to Article 246 of the 1995 Constitution. Therefore, the current Buganda Land Board is legally managing and administering that land.

5. That people on the 9,000 square miles are happily tilling and living on it.

Again, Mr Mayanja exposes himself here as someone less informed about what’s happening in the land sector, like MPs rightly pointed out during his vetting for the ministerial post (he was one of the worst performers during the vetting process).

The current land evictions in Buganda are mostly, if not all, happening on mailo akenda (9,000 square miles). The cries of people we see in the media are mostly happening in Mubende, Kiboga, Nakaseke, Nakasongola, Kayunga, Luweero.

And what those districts have in common is that they predominantly house the mailo akenda (9,000 square miles) which were wrongly put under district land boards after they were wrongly termed as land without owners. That was wrong because mailo akenda is Buganda’s customary land.

So, the Baganda own it and it was preserved for them. However, district land boards have instead issued out freehold titles on them to ‘big people’ who in turn evict customary tenants. According to Mayanja, there is peace on mailo akenda. Funny!

6.That he wants to correct historical injustices.

Mayanja and his sponsors have one mission: that is to take away Kabaka’s land. So, he cannot claim to be correcting historical injustices by committing and furthering injustice.

They want to use state power to extrapolate Kabaka’s land, currently run by BLB, to government so that his masters can equally turn it into their private property like they have done with the 9,000 square miles.

Good enough, the public backlash he is already receiving both on social media and traditional media shows that the people of Buganda have read through his lies and mission.

They know that Buganda’s customary land is safer in the hands of the Kabaka for he cannot dish out freehold titles the way government does. They know that the current land law sufficiently protects bibanja holders against evictions but it is flouted by those with guns.

They know of encroachers who have been purposely imported onto Buganda land and now the Sam Mayanjas want to give them freehold titles under the guise of protecting bibanja holders and correcting historical injustices.

They know they can only trust the Kabaka.

The author is a concerned Muganda.

 

AG Kiryowa Kiwanuka is the wrong man for the wrong job

https://observer.ug/news/headlines/70596-ag-kiryowa-kiwanuka-is-the-wrong-man-for-the-wrong-job

July 21, 2021

 

Written by ISAAC K SSEMAKADDE

 

The purpose of an Attorney General (AG) is to be the chief representative of the state, especially in court-related legal matters.

This is considered so important that sometimes the person holding the post is also the minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

This is laughable because justice and constitutionalism are difficult things to achieve in the colonial contraption known as Uganda, and especially while under the control of this National Resistance Movement (NRM) government which perpetually boasts of having captured state power through terrorism, and arguably crimes against humanity, disguised as a popular insurrection led by the National Resistance Army (NRA).

The claim by the state of Uganda to be a legal, legitimate and law-abiding entity is fraudulent. It was fraudulent from when the state was created by trickery, force and theft in 1894 as the Uganda Protectorate, and became fraudulent again after the death of the attempted hopes of the Independence Constitution in 1967.

But that is one thing. The real issue here is the office of the AG because, in it, we see the state’s active claim to legitimacy and lawfulness. It cannot be gainsaid that the office of the AG is immensely important. As the principal legal representative of government, the AG is the head of the Bar and automatically becomes Senior Counsel.

These titles are a little tedious, and relics of the late-feudal manners of the royal palace courts of England. But coming out of that, there is actually a need to examine if, indeed, we need such an office, banding together many types of power, as derived from its original Euro-feudal origins. Why, for example, does the lawyer representing one side in a court case have to defer to the lawyer for the other side because they are “senior counsel”?

And why should the AG be seen also as head of the Bar? How then will other lawyers dispute with such a lawyer in court or at the bar association, when the lawyer heads the association to which all lawyers are answerable? And, moreover, the “senior counsel” thing is already hanging over their heads?

FOR GOVT OR FOR STATE

The bottom line is that “everyone needs a lawyer”, to paraphrase the human rights guru Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi. Even governments, and the state. The question of “which is which” is what has basically destroyed the standing of the AG’s office in Ugandan eyes.

Is the AG a lawyer for the government of the day, or a lawyer for the state? If what the government is doing is not in the best interests of the state, and the people who are supposed to be its owners, then where should the AG place their obligation? To help the government, or to protect the state?

In 1966/7, two constitutions were written in quick succession and imposed on a cowed population: one overnight and then voted for by a parliament facing guns and without reading it, and another after the parliament’s term had expired.

The latter was then amended quite a bit to make it even more dictatorial. Since then, this has really been bandit country. For example, the Local Governments Act was amended twice by the end of 1967 to undermine the powers of districts to elect their own chairpersons and transfer that power to the Minister.

But to cover up this essentially structural crisis of democracy, Uganda has always had an AG, purporting to be the legal face of a legal state, and law-abiding government.

DRESSING A NAKED STATE

All governments of Uganda (including the present junta) have had a constitution without constitutionalism. The effect of each of these constitutions has been to rebuild the whole state around the Presidency, just as the whole colonial state was built around the throne of the Imperial British Empire, represented locally by the Governor.

Ugandan presidents have been replacement governors ever since. An Attorney General is an official appointed by such presidents and working under their authority.

Instead of curating justice and fostering constitutionalism by helping enforce proper laws, they have often instead provided the legal cover-up for not just the illegal and unconstitutional acts of their respective presidents, but also the basic illegality and illegitimacy of the Uganda state itself.

Kiryowa Kiwanuka (R) representing Museveni earlier in an election petition

Uganda has had an interesting array of them: Godfrey Binaisa, who helped President Milton Obote write those two aforementioned constitutions (the first one within 24 hours). He resigned in 1968 over disagreements with Obote regarding the presidential powers of detention (among other constitutional matters), and went into private legal practice.

Binaisa later became president under the anti-Amin Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) coalition of 1979-1980, but his lack of focus and ideological dithering contributed to its being overthrown militarily.

Nkambo Mugerwa, Godfrey Lule, and Mathia Matovu undergirded Field Marshal Idi Amin’s reign of terror, before decamping and settling for private practice. Prof George Kanyeihamba, who is a critic of President Museveni nowadays.

But he was swiftly defenestrated from the cabinet room when he opined that Ugandans (like Democratic Party stalwart Mzee Byanyima, the father of Winnie Byanyima) whose ranches had been seized by “the government he served” should be compensated. Ironically, Kanyeihamba had worked tirelessly in the early days of the NRM/NRA rule to create a “legal” basis for some of the basically unnatural (in constitutional terms) ways in which the junta was governing.

For instance, having President Museveni function also as the “chair” – effectively Speaker – of the putative parliament, the so-called National Resistance Council; and explaining the one- party system as a constitutional system, etc. He went on to become a Supreme court judge and infamously refused to recuse himself in the case of a high-ranking military officer challenging the terms of his employment as a soldier, even though the NRM/NRA – of which Kanyeihamba was a fervent supporter – had a clear interest in the matter.

Joseph Ekemu, along with his personal assistant were jailed for two years at Luzira prison over the theft of Shs 113 million that was meant for compensation of Teso people from whom the NRA had stolen cattle during the insurgency of 1987-1990. He was instantly disbarred, but later reinstated on the roll of advocates after satisfying the Law Council that he was “repentant”.

In May 2018, Ekemu and a coterie of poverty-stricken former MPs stormed Parliament House with a begging bowl, lobbying for pension, gratuity, jobs and sinecures in government because they had failed to find employment in the private sector.

Bart Katureebe, resigned the seat at the time many controversial constitutional changes were afoot. He went on to be a Supreme court judge and continued its legacy of ignoring evidence of election fraud in presidential election cases. In his valedictory as Chief Justice, he was the tie-breaker in a 4:3 verdict that condoned the desecration of the present constitution, to secure a life presidency for Museveni, through a military invasion of parliament and the erosion of participatory democracy.

Prof Khiddu Makubuya, was believed by many to be the pre-eminent legal mind of his time until a spectacular fall from grace on 16 February 2012 when he was forced to resign from the cabinet so as to avoid parliamentary censure for corruption.

He is notoriously remembered for trying to persuade the Electoral Commission that opposition supremo Dr Kizza Besigye should not be nominated as a candidate in the 2006 presidential elections, because an ongoing court case against him made him still not guilty but nevertheless “less innocent” in the eyes of the law.

Peter Nyombi, who replaced Makubuya, fared no better. In August 2013, the Uganda Law Society (ULS) issued him with a “certificate of incompetence” and suspended him from its membership for two years, after he had rendered a series of opinions that contravened conventional legal understanding and brought disrepute to the bar.

He is remembered for trying to persuade the Speaker of Parliament that rebel NRM MPs could not keep their parliamentary seats after the party had expelled them, and for endorsing the appointment of a serving military officer to the cabinet, and the retention of Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki in office beyond the mandatory retirement age.

In January 2014, a young lawyer embarrassed AG Nyombi at the dais when he was addressing a bar-bench gathering by relieving him of his speech. The activist, who I had the privilege of representing at Buganda Road Chief Magistrates’ court, was later acquitted of all charges, despite Nyombi’s passionate plea for a conviction. He was subsequently dropped from the cabinet in 2015 following concerns by US authorities that he was involved in trafficking Ugandan children for adoption abroad.

Sam Kutesa, about whom the less said, before, during and certainly after his stint as AG, the better. There is simply not enough space to list all his embarrassments.

Then there was also William Byaruhanga, pleasant and anodyne, who put in some largely uneventful shift as the immediate past government defender. Prior to that, he was first seen some two decades earlier, when briefly sucked into the infamous junk helicopter scandal through an alleged association with one of the key suspects.

I have nothing bad on Joseph Mulenga, Abu Mayanja and Francis Ayume, and the jury is still out on the others. However, my point is: that there has been no time since 1966 when we can be said to have been governed “legally”. In good faith? Possibly, during the immediate post-Amin period. But legally and constitutionally: no.

All these AGs have been part of that process. Many left either corrupted, or disappointed, or both. Perhaps some, like Ayume, Mayanja and Mulenga, re-emerged unscathed. But was that because of an absence of controversial issues at the time, or a matter of integrity?

What makes the newcomer different is that he has gone in when already part of a very corrupted system. It is, therefore, a case of a monkey meeting its mating partner: a charlatan of a lawyer, occupying a charlatan of a law job.

PEOPLE, AND “PEOPLE” (ABAANA N’EBYANA)

To understand this, we must now understand the person. We have already explained the job. Born in rural Gombe, Mpigi district on 8 June 1973 but raised in exile in the leafy suburbs of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Kiryowa Kiwanuka Nsumikambi Mugambe comes from a long line of what is now an established tradition of NRM patronage and affinity for descendants of “noble families”, especially for Ugandans from outside Western Uganda.

Essentially, in every NRM-backed appointment for this category of Ugandans, there is a trade with a prominent name, often one associated with either the triumphs or tragedies of Uganda’s political journey.

In his song Mac Onywalo Buru (Fire Begets Ash) that brought him trouble, the singer Bosmic Otim castigates the sons of many historically prominent leaders from northern Uganda for ending up working nominally for this regime. He names James Akena, Okello Oryem and Taban Amin, among others.

But this has not been just a northern Uganda problem. Many similar families from the south and east have seen their “suitable” sons and daughters served up to be regime hacks, apologists and hatchet men and women.

In this category of regime surrogates, one may cite people like Maurice Kiwanuka, son of the legendary Ben Kiwanuka, who ended up losing the family home in some bid to raise money to retain his parliamentary seat; Wasswa Lule, son of the first post- Amin president and NRM figurehead and activist in the war years; Zimula Mugwanya, grandson of Matayo Mugwanya, one-time regent to Kabaka Cwa, and founder of the Democratic Party; Ahmed Kinene, cousin to martyred bush war veteran and social campaigner Abbas Kibazo; Beatrice Magoola, granddaughter of Zirabamuzaale, a war companion of the British-supporting General Semei Kakungulu; Beti Kamya, daughter of Lt Col George Wilson Kamya, Paymaster General of the Uganda Army in the Amin era; Syda Bbumba, also a descendant of Mugwanya; Maria Kiwanuka, granddaughter of former Katikkiro Martin Nsibirwa; and many more.

The purpose of such inclusions has been to, of course, draw on whatever localised legitimacy those names carry in the communities of the families concerned, but also to extinguish any independent political potency the name may carry.

In other words, it is an act of taming the offspring of the otherwise free parent animal, the same way man domesticated wolves to create pet dogs that are only wolf-like on command of the master. Many have been approached, few have resisted.

NO REPUTATION TO LOSE

The new Attorney General is, as I say, different again. If indeed few previous appointees have managed to leave this post with their reputations intact, then what makes Kiryowa Kiwanuka special is that he goes to the post with no reputation of worth to lose in the first place.

Orphaned at 18 following the tragic motor accident that claimed the life of his father Jimmy Mugambe (a government pensioner) in 1991, KK, as he is fondly called by friends and hangers-on, comes to this position from nearly 20 years of working with the first family, the NRM, and a cast of greedy and shady characters like his brother-in-law Apollo Senkeeto, the convicted mastermind of the Mukono- Kyetume-Katosi road procurement scam that robbed Uganda of billions of shillings.

In a special report titled “Museveni’s Nyekundire resurrects for 2011 polls”, published as a cover story by The Independent on 16 June 2009, Kiryowa Kiwanuka was cited as “one of the key organisers” of Nyekundire (Runyankore for ‘volunteers’) – a covert assembly of nouveaux riche campaigners for an old and lonely president.

The group allegedly included relatives of President Museveni and a cabal of fat cats secretively drawn from the military, intelligence, business and government sectors.

They were “mainly driven by a sense of gratitude and fear because many of them have largely benefited from the NRM government and feel that it is only Museveni who can guarantee their continued success. They are insecure and fear that any other leader could possibly jeopardize their ‘successes’”.

Riding again on a family name (as the grandson of a famous newspaper publisher, nightclub owner, soccer patron and Uganda Peoples’ Congress co-founder Joseph William “Jolly Joe” Kiwanuka, who was allegedly killed by President Idi Amin), KK acquired high-level connections in the court of Museveni’s make-believe kingdom initially as a nephew of long-time State House stenographer and former trade minister Amelia Kyambadde, and later as a legal associate of first son-in-law Edwin Karugire.

KK’s aunt, Amelia Kyambadde, is herself a daughter of Omuwanika (Kabaka’s finance minister) Serwano Ssenseko Wofunira Kulubya (CBE), the Anglican oligarch who served as the first African mayor of the city of Kampala from 1959 to 1961.

THE KNIFE-SHARPENER

KK’s loyalty and service as an errand boy of the president and his family, and later hired gun for the ruling party, have been recognised and rewarded with the highest political honour. The lanky lawyer has wormed his way into cabinet without the bane of a pernicious election. The implication is clear that KK has come to complete the fusion of family, party and government under a de facto Kingdom.

Kiryowa Kiwanuka’s appointment as AG is particularly problematic for the judiciary, and the legal profession. First of all, his main client – the septuagenarian president – has been in power for so long that he has now appointed every member of the “independent” judicial service commission, and every judicial officer from registrar to the judges and justices of the superior courts.

However, all these appointments have been shrouded in mystery. A cabal of powerful and well-connected law firms and other lobbyists is known to assist many hopefuls to get the call, and to obstruct “the undesirables”. Accusations persist of packing the superior courts with “cadre judges”, and the lower courts with “DNRA” – i.e. the Descendants of NRA fighters and comrades.

Since KK has long been suspected of having the president’s ear and serving as a judiciary sleuth of sorts, he is poised to appear before many judges that may feel obliged to sheepishly agree with him or walk on egg shells for fear of reprisal.

A few may actually want to punish him for their perceived career stagnation or his complicity in the general lawlessness. The KK-factor will certainly be inescapable. Secondly, it is an open secret that the president has turned the government of Uganda into a money-making operation for his family, his friends and himself.

This is a complete betrayal of the constitutional design, in which K&K Advocates (formerly Kiwanuka & Karugire Advocates) is inextricably entangled. However, it is unclear whether the incoming AG relinquished his interests in the aforementioned law firm before taking the oath of office on 8 July 2021.

The firm’s website continues to advertise him as one of its practice leaders. He certainly said nothing about stepping aside from private legal practice a week ago when hosted on Zoom by the ULS Young Lawyers’ Committee ostensibly for some kind of mentorship on “pathways to success in the legal profession”.

Despite basking in the media spotlight since his nomination was announced more than a month ago, Kiryowa Kiwanuka has not explained how he will simultaneously serve as the nation’s chief legal officer and maintain his interests in a full-service law firm that represents both private and public sector clients in a wide range of fields, including media, telecoms, finance, transport, energy, construction and medical supplies.

How does he plan to insulate himself from potential conflicts of interest? KK’s failure to lead other political appointees by demonstrably clarifying such ethical imperatives for high state office contradicts any pretense that he is a well-intentioned reformer, an anti-corruption Czar or champion of clean and open government.

In a rather prescient interview published by The Independent on 3 May 2016, Kiryowa Kiwanuka underscored his fanatical support for President Museveni, and confessed to suffering from hubris (arrogance and excessive pride) and telling lies on occasion “for survival” and “when it is necessary”.

When asked about his most marked characteristic, the future AG replied: “I am too dismissive.” Regarding the one thing he wished to change about himself, he replied: “Increase on humility; if I could just be there without being in anyone’s face.”

Of his greatest achievement, KK stated: “Insisting on myself.” And his personal motto: “Insist on yourself.” Clearly, this interview revealed a lot about the mind map of our next AG. It personally reminded me of another brilliant lawyer, fanatical supporter and former errand boy of President Museveni, the late Brig Noble Mayombo, whose personal motto was a famous quip attributed to French King Louis XIV: “L’etat, c’est moi”, which means “I myself am the State.”

Does Museveni the tyrant hypnotize all his legal acolytes?

Hence the new AG is “an ardent supporter of President Museveni”, and “a liar” who is “too dismissive” and wanting in humility. He has a tendency of “insisting on himself”, and his entire professional purpose has been to help fuse the private affairs and interests of the first family (and by extension his own) with those of the state.

In a nutshell, Kiryowa Kiwanuka is a useful idiot. He has not been appointed for his juridical opinion but, rather, for his obedience to the House of Kaguta. When the great questions of the day come (and they are coming pretty soon), we will surely see the glorified errand boy who suffers from hubris and mendacity completely exposed to the elements.

EATING LAND

This brings us to the questions likely to arise between 2021 and 2026, and why KK was thought fit for the job in the perspective of the appointing authority. The first one, but perhaps not the most important, is the question of mailo land tenure system, which the president has vowed to obliterate.

Mailo is a tricky and very emotive issue among the Baganda, and for good reason. Mailo as a land tenure system is unique not just to Uganda, but especially to Buganda. Grounded in the 1900 Buganda Agreement with the British, it created private land (private mailo) far beyond the reach of state actors.

In fact, in the entire British Empire, as was, Buganda and the archipelago of Tonga were the only two colonised places where land was left in the hands of natives in some fashion, by law, i.e. the new colonial arrangements. In Buganda’s case, it was a result of the concessions the conquering Brits had had to make to the Anglican warlords who had helped secure their victory.

Mailo has since become part of the identity issues in Buganda. Critics will point out that the land was given to elite families and it created dual ownership (squatters and landlords), but there is very little dissent (if any) for the system among the Baganda (be they elite or ordinary citizens).

Kiryowa Kiwanuka the golfer

In Buganda, we look askance at this government’s intentions for mailo land because we have had enough of the wolf guarding the sheep, and the fox guarding the hen house. As Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga has pointed out, the disputes that have emerged on a large scale over mailo land are disputes peculiar to Museveni’s reign and Museveni’s people.

To the extent that mailo land is, or may become a problem, shouldn’t this be a matter for those concerned, i.e. the people of the Kingdom of Buganda, and its institutions, to resolve?

Few issues define Buganda — the monarchy, language, clan structure, traditions like kwanjula and of course mailo. Dismantling mailo is, therefore, political dynamite. It then helps (visually at least) if the arguments against mailo are going to be made not just by any Muganda, but the “much learned” grandson of Jolly Joe Kiwanuka who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s as the spokesman of anti- Bulange forces.

Bulange House, in Mengo, is the true pride of Buganda Kingdom, and its Capitol. In this regard, KK is “better” than previous AGs who lacked this pedigree. It is also helpful if the movers of such a patently unpopular motion have no political constituency to hold them back from committing political suicide. Both KK and the incoming state minister for Lands Dr Sam Mayanja, another Museveni- hypnotized anti-Bulange Muganda and wonkish lawyer, are both unelected and unelectable eunuchs.

BUT WHY WOULD ONE WANT TO DISMANTLE MAILO NOW?

The NRM having made inroads into previously hostile political territory, notably Teso in the East and Lango and Acholi in the North, now sees Buganda as dispensable. Use and dump.

Mailo was of course not always popular with the ruling elite, but it just could not be done away with in the past. In his memoir, Sowing The Mustard Seed, the fabled rebel leader recounts his experiences of the 1981-1986 “bush war”, stressing the potent support his guerillas received from Buganda which was an organized and settled ethnic group.

The proposed anti-mailo reforms are, therefore, aimed at further emasculating Buganda as a potential base of future resistance, given the very poor showing of the ruling party in Buganda at the last elections (vote-rigging notwithstanding). However, KK will soon discover that the anti-mailo brief is actually a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

How can the junta “reform” a land ownership system that, while they condemn it as “unfair”, has been one of the most sought-after items of booty (omunyago) by its top brass and cronies precisely because of its legal value? How will they now avoid harming their own ill-gotten interests in mailo land? Much as there are challenges with mailo and indeed other land tenure systems in Buganda and the rest of Uganda, the one thing KK will not be able to do is use his new office to develop effective legal remedies.

The entire mission of this regime, since 1986, has actually been the opposite: to take advantage of these problems. The second reason is that virtually all public land has now been grabbed by the 1986 “Bush War” Mafia (more commonly known as “Twateera Embundu” by the public) and the significant lands still available in the central region are mailo.

Having succeeded in giving away gazetted forest land, game parks, swamps, wetlands and green spaces to (often immigrant) squatters, bush war veterans, and lately all manner of “investors”, the junta now seeks a “legal” way to do this on mailo land.

Historically, regime big shots were able to grab large tracts of mailo land simply by ignoring laws protecting squatters on mailo land, while using the same laws as leverage against non-connected mailo owners to buy them out (since the land space had become useless to the titular owner, due to the said squatters).

However, there was near unanimous outrage expressed against the regime at the last elections by the victims of land grabbing in Buganda. Hence the appointment of a chief law officer from a prominent family of landowners (the Kulubyas), as some sort of elixir guaranteed to win back the confidence of both mailo landowners and squatters.

Unfortunately, given the historical role of the AG’s office in serving this unconstitutional state, Kiryowa Kiwanuka will neither stop nor reverse state-backed pillage schemes. Indeed his brief, based on recent policy statements, is to justify new legal maneouvres, including constitutional amendments, that will further ease acquisition of mailo land but this time through eminent domain (allegedly for public use, with nominal compensation).

PROTECTING THE EATERS

The second issue and perhaps the most important in KK’s appointment is the question of succession or, as others call it, transition. Since African countries started getting independence in the 1950s to-date, about 15 presidents have died in office, the latest being John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania and Idriss Déby Itno of Chad.

In most of the cases, the articles of transition are very clear, and the structures of state are democratically governed so that transition is always smooth. This was the case with Magufuli to Samia Suluhu in Tanzania. In at least two cases where the constitution was clear (Kenya and Malawi), the “muwogo” (cassava bread) mafia tried to prevent the vice president from ascending to the throne. Both were unsuccessful.

In the Kenyan case when Jomo Kenyatta died in 1978, it was the Attorney General Charles Njonjo who helped Daniel arap Moi fend off the Kikuyu “muwogo” mafia who wanted to usurp power. In Malawi, following President Bingu wa Mutharika’s death, there were plots by his allies to circumvent the constitution and install their own candidate (the late president’s brother Peter Mutharika) over Vice-President Joyce Banda.

Both cases, in particular, illustrate how a constitutional transition requires support from key actors, particularly the cabinet, military leaders, judiciary, civil society, and the independent media. The AG is, therefore, one of the cogs that move the wheels of succession.

The point to take home is this: some of the chaotic presidential successions have involved sons — Mahamat ibn Idriss Déby Itno in Chad, Faure Gnassingbé in Togo, Joseph Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ali Bongo Ondimba in Gabon.

Déby and Kabila were straight-forward installations by the military. Gnassingbe was initially installed by the military but was rejected by the international community. He then resigned and held elections which he won.

Ali Bongo was fronted by his party to replace his father. None of these sons were first in the line of succession at the demise of their respective fathers. They were simply lurking in the wings. You know who else is lurking, don’t you?

So, God forbid, when succession/transition comes in Uganda, with whom will KK as AG side? The ‘people’ or ‘House of Kaguta’? In other words, the above-described AG “loyalty dilemma” will raise its head again. In a messy transition, the AG has one other role to play for which KK was obviously seen as the only sure bet who can execute it — issuance of legal notices. These are the instruments of notoriety used by a regime that has overthrown a constitution.

CHANGING POLITICAL CONFIGURATIONS

As we have said, they have been written at least five times in this country. We already mentioned the most famous being in 1966/7. But there have also been legal notices for 1971, 1979, 1985 and 1986.

To get these done, the president or his family needs more than a subservient AG on their side. As Godfrey Binaisa was for Obote’s case in 1966, they need one who dogmatically believes in the infamous Kelsenian theory, and has no qualms about distancing the courts from the affairs of the military and the state. KK fits the bill.

The third reason the grandson of rabble-rouser Kiwanuka was named AG is his eight-year-old Twitter account which currently boasts of 47,800 followers, including some high-profile influencers and rank-and-file followers that both push messages in his direction and promote every online utterance he makes.

Besides the president, few other members of the cabinet enjoy such visibility on social media. KK’s predecessor William Byaruhanga did not even have an account on any social media platform. In his Twitter bio, KK describes himself as “Partner at K&K Advocates formerly Kiwanuka & Karugire Advocates – Multilaw. Board Member, Petroleum Authority of Uganda. MAK Council member. C/man Express FC.” However, his tweets reveal that he has also been a politician, if not AG, all along. Nodding to supporters. Fending off challenges by the opposition.

Accepting media engagements. Basically politics!

When human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo was charged with money laundering last year, KK took to Twitter on Christmas day to defend the state’s action. Recently he denounced false reporting on the death of a public figure, and his boss followed this up with a directive. @KiyowaKk is therefore a strategic megaphone where KK is expected to continue his characteristic scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners style of dealing with a younger, more tech-savvy and brasher opposition to a decaying junta.

History repeats itself.

KK’s grandfather, Jolly Joe Kiwanuka, is widely remembered as a fiery politician who weaponized his Kololo-based newspapers, The Uganda Post and The Uganda Express, as a power base to criticize the Kabaka’s government and destroy rivals like DP’s Ben Kiwanuka and former comrades like Ignatius Kangave Musaazi with whom he had fallen out, while propping up his latest dalliances like the sweetheart deal with Apollo Milton Obote.

Despite being the chairman of Musaazi’s Uganda National Congress, Jolly Joe spearheaded the coalition with Uganda People’s Union in 1960 to form the Uganda’s People’s Congress (UPC), through which Obote came into power in 1962. Jolly Joe’s disruptiveness transcended politics.

Writing for The Observer on 24 May 2018 in an article titled “How Jolly Joe wooed Nekyon into football”, sports historian Hassan Badru Zziwa recounts several battles that KK’s grandfather, the founder of Express FC and untouchable UPC darling of the day, ruthlessly waged against his football rivals in the sixties, including Rev Polycarp Kakooza and Bitumastic FC (which he got banned through parliament for engaging in unsporting activities).

Kiryowa is the current chairman of Express FC

Museveni, a UPC youth-winger and an errand boy of Obote in those days, must have observed the Machiavellian methods of KK’s grandfather with much adoration. Having had plentiful time to groom Jolly Joe’s grandson in the same traditions, the septuagenarian must be supremely confident, as was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, that now is the time to unleash his monster of an Attorney General on the nation.

Using a mixture of carrot and stick, the junta has almost succeeded in shackling civil society and the political opposition in Uganda. However, there are some relentless and incorruptible campaigners like KK’s contemporary Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, and a new wave of younger radical elites like Dr Ekwaro Obuku of the Uganda Medical Association, Dr Deus Kamunyu Muhwezi of Makerere University Academic Staff Association, maverick lawyer Male Mabirizi, and Bobi Wine’s educated NUP “hooligans”, for whom new and smart forms of repression must be designed.

The threat posed by this group of charismatic, radical elites cannot be taken lightly. Our history shows that they were instrumental in Museveni’s rise to power, having led the resistance against the dictatorships of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. In Sudan, the Sudan Professionals Association – a group incorporating lawyers, doctors, engineers and teachers – helped to organise the protests against dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Doctors set up camps to treat the wounded, lawyers rescued the arrested, and when the military tried to hijack the revolution, their coordinated efforts kept the momentum going and forced a civilian transitional government to be appointed. Boy Wonder KK’s brief is, therefore, to help a dysfunctional regime win back the hearts and minds of Uganda’s middle-class professional elites.

He will attempt to do this by capitalizing on pseudo-celebrity status as a member of both golf and soccer royalty, and further as a pseudo-intellectual and philanthropist who makes emotional or intellectual appeals that mask the junta’s endemic illegitimacy, brutality and corruption. To his credit, he understands the game, and can fool many gullible elites.

I confirmed this when I observed him closely at work as the first lady’s appointee on the Makerere University Council, where he was a member of its appointments board since January 2019. Several litigations have arisen from his conduct as a council member, especially his latest stint as chairperson of the all-powerful search committee mandated to recruit college principals and deputy principals.

In the College of Health Sciences at Mulago, KK was accused by a group of nearly 70 senior staff of bending the rules to favour the spouse of a State House employee. The iconic Ivory Tower literally burned under his watch. Yet many elites still think he did a good job of “cleaning up the rot” at the oldest and largest university in Uganda.

Knowing better, it behooves us to sound the alarm. Building from Kelsenian beliefs and deep antipathy to constitutionalism, Kiryowa Kiwanuka will personally appear in court more often than other AGs before him, defending not the rule of law but rule by the law. Beholden to the House of Kaguta, KK will not bother himself with justice and the fight against corruption. There may be a new sheriff in town, but it is business as usual.

From a jurisprudential perspective, AG Kiryowa Kiwanuka will espouse legal positivism, interpreting laws so narrowly as to throw out the spirit in which they were drafted, or the constitutional values that they were meant to advance.

In short, he will be just another rascal with a wig, a robe, a brief and, of course, a Twitter account.

Twitter: @IsaacSsemakadde

info@mylegalbrain.com

The author is the founder and chief executive of Legal Brains Trust, a Kampala-based democracy and human rights watchdog. In March 2018, he was voted by members of the Uganda Law Society as the “Most Outstanding Advocate” in the category of Public Interest Lawyering. He is the go-to lawyer for Makerere University Academic Staff Association among other civic and political organizations. 

Sam Mayanja is trying to defraud the people of Buganda

https://observer.ug/viewpoint/71298-sam-mayanja-is-trying-to-defraud-the-people-of-buganda 

September 22, 2021

 

Written by SSENTAMU SSEWANDAGI

 

Once upon a time, the people of Mityana-Singo welcomed a one Ernest Bireebwe Mayanja to their area. Bireebwe had been posted there by Buganda kingdom as an agricultural services extension worker. After sometime, Bireebwe acquired land in the area. People were happy for him.

However, to their shock, Bireebwe started a scheme of evicting people off their bibanja. The people resisted. They sought justice from Buganda government. They got it as Bireebwe was stopped from evicting them. However, he did not relent.

He continued to be at loggerheads with some of them. Because Baganda love peace, some decided to leave the place and find peace somewhere else. Others remained. Bireebwe later died during the ‘liberation war.’ He left children including Sam Mayanja, Uganda’s state minister for Lands.

Whereas Ernest Bireebwe Mayanja tried to defraud people of Mityana of their land, his son is on a quest to defraud the whole people of Buganda of their institutional, cultural and private land. He wants to do it by using state power to expropriate without compensation for Buganda kingdom land and put it under the control of the Uganda government, like he has consistently asserted in his media articles and interviews.

History shows that those who seek to defraud people of their land first convince them that it is in their interest to forfeit the said land. They will devise reasons such as development, correcting historical injustices, etc. It is, therefore, not surprising that Sam Mayanja is masking his quest to defraud the people of Buganda under the disguise of stopping evictions even when there already exists tools any minister can use to stop illegal evictions. 

The Land Act is a good remedy for evictions if well-implemented but Mayanja, who interestingly loves calling himself a grandson of Apollo Kivebulaya, is not interested in implementing the law and cleaning up the mess at the ministry of Lands.

In 1995, the Constitution of Uganda made the Kabaka of Buganda the only institution which can hold land in trust for itself and the people of Buganda. However, those who sought to defraud the people of Buganda of their customary land known as mailo akenda (9,000 square miles) at the time refused to have the Kabaka control that land.

 

They reasoned that the 9,000 square miles had no owner and, therefore, it had to be put under district land boards, so that bibanja holders on it could go to the districts and get themselves freehold titles.

Most evictions in Buganda happen in Mubende, Nakasongola, Kiboga, Nakaseke, Luweero and those areas where mailo akenda is predominant. These evictions are by ‘big’ people who have fraudulently gotten freehold titles. Those evictions are not accidental. Those who refused to put mailo akenda under Kabaka’s control wanted to grab it using districts because it would have been impossible if the land was under Kabaka’s control.

Sam Mayanja is acting as if he wants expropriation of more land to government so that his masters can grab even the remaining land in Buganda.

Secondly, it is as if he wants government to take over Kabaka’s land so that he becomes landless and lose his Ssaabattaka cultural role; he wants government to take over clan land in Buganda so that Bataka lose their significance and also lose obutaka land.

He wants government to take over private mailo land so that government can give freehold titles to people of its interest. He wants to legitimize the loot of those who have forged freehold titles on mailoland. He wants to expropriate Buganda land so that his masters can freely dish out our land to Chinese and other ‘investors’ without compensating people.

Over 16 million people live happily on either Kabaka’s land or church land or private mailo land. Thousands of people on mailo akenda and other government land are in fear of being evicted but Sam Mayanja won’t help them. Why?

Unfortunately for Mayanja, people know that his mission is to weaken Buganda by making the Kabaka, clans and private mailo landowners landless. The negative blowback he is getting from all corners should show him that he cannot hide behind bibanja holders to defraud the people of Buganda. Kibanja holding is a system which the people of Buganda have lived with even before the 1900 agreement was made.

If Sam Mayanja wanted to sort land evictions, they would start by cancelling all the fraudulent land titles on mailo akenda, clean up land offices, strengthen the police land department, quicken court cases in court, ensure that the land fund is functional, and reintroduce the Busuulu and Envujjo law.

The author is a concerned indigenous citizen of Uganda.

 

 

 L-R: Minister Sam Mayanja, Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi and President MusevenI

INSIDE STORY:  You Can’t Lease Ugandans Their Own Land On Which They Plant Their Food And Bury Their People – Inside Museveni’s Attack On Kyapa Mu Ngalo And Kabaka Owned BLB…

https://www.thegrapevine.co.ug/inside-story-you-cant-lease-ugandans-their-own-land-on-which-they-plant-their-food-and-bury-their-people-inside-musevenis-attack-on-kyapa-mu-ngalo-and-kabaka-owned-blb/ 

November 12, 2021

By

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has sidelined the Attorney General and also his handler on legal matters Kiryowa Kiwanuka in the process of drafting and preparing for the long waited controversial land amendment bill.

In his 8th/11/2021 letter, to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) members, Museveni declared that Buganda Land Board, which acts as Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s agents on land matters is illegal and all its activities including ‘kyapa mu ngalo’ should be fought.

“Resist all schemes of ‘okutemako’ (cut pieces from) of the Bibanja owner’s land or kyapa mu ngalo (leases given by illegal Buganda Land Board). Leases were for educated, sometimes for foreigner, commercial producers using land. They cannot be for Ugandans who have their homes (Obutuuro), the graves of their ancestors on those lands. This is why the customary or freehold (land systems) may be the only correct models for Ugandans,” Museveni wrote.

He insisted that CEC members should fight land evictions in the country because it will make people start buying food from others when they have their own land.

Museveni’s statement left supporters of Dr. Sam Mayanja, the junior lands minister jubilant, claiming that their long-term battle against heartless landlords is about to be won.

Mayanja has been criticizing the activities of Buganda Land Board and insisting that the Traditional Rulers Restitution of Assets and Properties Act of 1993 and the Institution of Traditional Or Cultural Leaders Act, 2011 is illegal and violates the 1995 Constitution.

Mayanja insisted that it was illegal and president Museveni was poorly advised to sign agreements with Kabaka Mutebi to return the said properties because there were no properties confiscated from Buganda Kingdom through the 1967 Constitution.

He said that the alleged confiscated properties were part of the properties left behind for Baganda who didn’t benefit in the 1900 agreement and should be nationalised and not be returned to Buganda Kingdom.

Mayanja advised that all the agreements signed between Kabaka Mutebi and Museveni should be declared illegal because Baganda were never consulted when negotiations were taking place which resulted in signing the agreements.

Top Buganda Kingdom legal brains fired back at Mayanja and blamed him for misleading the president to achieve his personal vendetta against the Kingdom.

Former Buganda Kingdom deputy spokesperson and the current Busiro East legislator Medard Lubega Ssegona cautioned Mayanja on confusing Museveni on Buganda Land Board well knowing that it is the the kingdom’s cash cow and the finances collected help run the kingdom affairs.

“I am very sure he (Mayanja) is the one who advised the president to make such worrying statements, we know he dislikes us and he knows very well what Buganda Land Board means to the running of the Kingdom. He has a bad attitude towards us and it is unfortunate that he made the president turn out to be a laughing stock before legal brains like us,” Ssegona said.

He was supported by Buganda kingdom Attorney General, Christopher Bwanika who said that Buganda Land Board is a legally registered company in the laws of Uganda under the  Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Act 2011 and the Traditional Rulers Restitution of Assets And Properties Act.

In an exclusive interview with Uganda’s leading weekly newspaper Ono Bwino, Buganda minister for general duties and a prominent city lawyer David Mpanga said that Mayanja’s ill statements against Buganda Kingdom may lead to violating the agreements signed between Kabaka Mutebi and Museveni.

Mr. Mpanga revealed that among the clauses in the agreement is putting a stop to exchanging of harmful propaganda which the Kingdom has respected but which Museveni has failed to respect by allowing Mayanja to attack the Kingdom.

Sources in the State house revealed that in a bid to curb the overwhelming land wrangles in the country, Museveni is determined to amend the land law even though some stakeholders have protested the move including churches and Kingdoms which hold vast pieces of land.

Sources also revealed that in this battle, Museveni has put a lot of trust in his long-term legal advisor Mayanja and his personal lawyers that is why he is sidelining the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka who is also his personal lawyer on some sensitive matters.

“Mzee thinks that the Attorney General might have conflict of interest, you know very well his relationship with Kabaka and some top Mengo officials,” a state house source said.

Sources added that Mayanja has been briefing Museveni at a personal level on every development since his appointment as minister to clear up the land mess and also draft the said bill.

Mayanja is an accomplished lawyer on land, finance and banking matters at Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) one of the most respected firms in the country.

KAA has represented president Museveni in several legal battles including presidential election petitions

Mayanja used his expertise to write a number of research papers on benefits of land amendments that were presented to president Museveni.

Sources said that the big man is very sure that with Mayanja’s advice, he and the NRM party will gain back Buganda which is under Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine’s NUP since many peasants who are mostly tenants have suffered at the hands of cruel landlords.

“A number of intelligence reports presented to the big man showed that one of the reasons why he lost in Buganda is the rampant land evictions. Many people think that he is the one behind these evictions so he wants to wash his hands clean through such laws,” a source said.

 

By Sengooba Alirabaki

 

 

When African Pentecostal Pastors Say no to Lucifer’s bible versions : Apostle Edward Ssewanyana EXPOSES THE SATANIC BIBLE VERSIONS

 

Apostle Edward Ssewanyana

My analysis  

One of the  treasures Lucifer has hidden from Pentecostal pastors in Uganda and Africa at large is the debate about satanic bible versions. A number of pastors in Uganda and Africa read the NIV that has hundreds of missing verses. These pastors hate anyone who challenges the NIV. They do everything possible to ensure that their flocks do not get knowledge about the devil’s scheme of changing and deleting  the word of God. If we claim to love Jesus, the word(John 1:1),why aren’t we concerned about the devil’s scheme of plucking bits and pieces of Flesh from our Jesus(the bible or word of God). I salute Apostle Edward Ssewanyana for taking a bold step to expose the so called new bible versions. May the Lord Jesus Christ reveal to him more truths about the bible controversy. Amen.

EXPOSING SATANIC BIBLE VERSIONS (PART 1) - LTV SERMON BY APOSTLE EDWARD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPMpdbL2ypA&t=1148s

 

EXPOSING SATANIC BIBLE VERSIONS (PART 3) - LTV SERMON BY APOSTLE EDWARD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8R-qldCotA&t=85s

 

EXPOSING SATANIC BIBLE VERSIONS (PART 2) - LTV SERMON BY APOSTLE EDWARD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrwjwbXh5iA

Pentecostal Prosperity Pastors and their ignorance of the bible version controversy: Bishop David Kiganda mis- interprets Pastor Solomon Male’s stance against divorce

https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/07/pentecostal-prosperity-pastors-and.html

 Challenging Catholic lies with boldness:  Apostle Edward Ssewanyana  prophesizes 3 more artistes to die this year if they do not repent , says he got a vision of Mozwey Radio burning in hell: Reverend Father Deogratias Kiibi Kateregga becomes a celebrity priest after presiding over the requiem mass of a V-sign waving fallen artiste Mowzey Radio: The priest also said that in the book of life angel Michael will read names of catholic priests, muslim Imamus , pastors, Anglican reverends . When you go to heaven they will ask you for the catholic baptism card and a letter from your catholic priest. Can you Imagine???

https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2018/02/challenging-catholic-lies-with-boldness.html

 

 

Golden Band Musician And Actress Najjuma Patience Died In A Motor Accident

https://newslexpoint.com/najjuma-patience-died-accident/  

Posted by: bukejonah in Celebrity October 8, 2018

 One of the Golden band musicians Najjuma Patience, brought sad news to her fellow Golden band singers and her fans at large. Today morning according to Ug blizz Uganda, it reported that Najjuma lost her life this morning in a nasty accident.

To make you recognize this lady, Najjuma Patience was both a singer and actress specifically and among the movies she featured in include  “Enyaama” which trended a lot in the Uganda’s movie industry. Therefore, while in Wobulenzi, Luweero district along Kampala – Gulu Highway, Najjuma Patience never managed to cross to the next line as the driver of the vehicle collided with a truck while over-taking.

 

However, Najjuma Patience finally left the earthly life after failing to with-stand the accident that happened this morning. Patience was recently working under one of the best Music groups, Golden band where they recognized  her talent from Ganda’s next musical icon s3 organized by the legendary singer MariamNdagire.

Among other victims who died in this nasty accident include Florence Nankumbi 28, Lule Richard 30, and Mbogo Isaac 32, and therefore don’t think that Patience lost her precious life alone.

We send sincere condolences to their families and friends.

 

Golden Student Najjuma Patience and Family Die In Accident In Luwero!

https://ejazzug.com/golden-student-najjuma-patience-and-family-die-in-accident-in-luwero/  

E Jazz Reporter

 

Golden Student; NAJJUMA PATIENCE,  has today lost her life together with other family members in a nasty accident at Wobulenzi in Luwero, along Kampala – Gulu Highway!

Patience and her family were apparently travelling to he village in a Vitz car which collided head on with a speeding FUSO truck.

Spotted by Mariam Ndagire in the “Uganda’s Next Musical Icon S3”, Patience also acted in a short film; “Enyaama”.

Several band members have come out to talk about the tragedy as an unfortunate one. Patience was commonly known as Golden Student as she was fond of putting on school uniforms during her performances.

When Babylon USA blames its impoverished and subjugated neo-liberal slave states: When the Confuser blames the confused:US report faults Uganda over human trafficking

 

US report faults Uganda over human trafficking

https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/us-report-faults-uganda-over-human-trafficking--3495754

Monday August 02 2021

A new report by the US government state department has accused the government of Uganda of not doing enough for its citizens who are trafficked abroad. 

 

The report says the government does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so.

The findings revealed that while the government increased awareness  campaigns and implemented the National Action Plan for Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Uganda 2019-2024, it did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period.

 

“The government did not report referring victims to care for the fifth consecutive year. For the seventh consecutive year, the government did not allocate resources to NGOs that provide protective services to victims. The government did not screen vulnerable populations abroad for indicators of human trafficking,” the report says.Uganda government is yet to resond to the report.  

Mr Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson, was not available to respond to the issues raised by press time. Officials from Gender, Labour and Social Development ministry were also not available to explain why government is not doing enough.

Titled: 2021 trafficking in persons report, the report says the government of Uganda investigated fewer trafficking cases and convicted fewer alleged perpetrators.

The report says government officials deliberately stifle investigations involving top government officials. 

They cited the 2019 investigations by State House on involvement of human trafficking by government officials and the 2018 investigations of security personnel at Malaba border and Entebbe Airport, as well as officials of the Civil Aviation Authority and ground handling companies at Entebbe Airport, for alleged involvement in trafficking crimes. According to the report, no reports have been published to date.

“Media and senior government officials reported high-level officials may have owned or been associated with some labor recruitment companies suspected of trafficking. An NGO in 2018 continued to report some complicit immigration officers at border crossings assisted traffickers, and several NGOs alleged some senior police officials in Kampala protected traffickers from arrest and prosecution,” the report says.

The report says while police announced creation of Anti-Trafficking in Persons Department within the Criminal Investigation and Crime Intelligence Department, the new anti-trafficking department had yet to receive final approval at the end of the current reporting period.

Trafficking profile
The report says over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Uganda, and traffickers exploit victims from Uganda abroad. 

According to the report, Ugandan children as young as seven are exploited in forced labour in agriculture, fishing, forestry, cattle herding, mining, stone quarrying, brick making, carpentry, steel manufacturing, street vending, bars, restaurants, gold mining, and domestic service.

“Traffickers exploit children in commercial sex. Women, children, internally displaced persons, and migrants may have been victims of forced labour or sex trafficking, and Cuban medical personnel working in Uganda may have been forced to work by the Cuban government,” the report says.

The findings futher indicate that the pandemic and the government’s lockdown measures, including closure of international airports and land borders, a curfew, restrictions on travel, restricted movement between districts and closure of all schools, workplaces, and government offices, shifted trafficking trends.

“.....the closure of international airports and land borders decreased international trafficking due to migrant workers unable to get to their destination, at the same time, domestic trafficking, including child sex trafficking increased,”  the report says.

The report also say recruiters target girls and women aged 13 and 24 years for domestic sex trafficking, especially near sports tournaments and road construction projects and that in 2018, an international organisation estimated that there are between 7,000 and 12,000 children exploited in sex trafficking in Uganda.

“An international organisation and an NGO reported most internal trafficking victims are Ugandans, many of whom are from the northeastern and eastern region, specifically Karimojong children who traffickers exploit in forced begging and commercial sex in brothels,’’ the report states.

The US government urged Uganda to increase efforts to complete judicial proceedings, while respecting due process and the rights of the accused, increase coordination between police investigators and prosecutors of trafficking crimes and expand protective services for victims, specifically through partnerships with NGOs, including by allocating resources.

The report has also recommended increase in training for Ugandan embassy staff on assisting trafficking victims abroad, including victim identification, providing temporary shelter or identifying local NGO shelters for victims.

Prosecution
The report says in 2020, the government investigated fewer cases compared to 2019.                      

“During the reporting period, the government prosecuted 283 defendants for trafficking; of these, 161 cases were domestic and 41 transnational; 140 were sex trafficking cases, 54 were labour trafficking cases, and eight were unknown; and 192 defendants were male, 44 female, 46 unknown, and one was a labour recruitment company,” the report says.  

“In 2020, courts convicted 11 traffickers under the anti-trafficking act in nine cases – six for sex trafficking and five for forced labour. This was a decrease compared to convicting 16 traffickers in 2019,” the report added.

The findings indicate that the closure of courts as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic delayed court hearings and hindered the ability of judicial officials and prosecutors to remain in touch with victims and  witnesses.

2021 Trafficking in Persons Report: Uganda

  https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report/uganda/  

UGANDA: Tier 2 Watch List

The Government of Uganda does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. These efforts included identifying more victims and signing the National Referral Guidelines for Management of Victims of Trafficking in Uganda (NRG). The government increased prosecutions of suspected traffickers and increased training to law enforcement personnel, investigated allegations of complicity in trafficking crimes, and created human trafficking officer positions within the Ugandan Police Force (UPF) and the Criminal Investigative Department (CID). The government increased awareness-raising campaigns and launched, funded, and implemented the National Action Plan for Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Uganda 2019-2024 (NAP). However, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period, even considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity. The government did not report referring victims to care for the fifth consecutive year. For the seventh consecutive year, the government did not allocate resources to NGOs that provide protective services to victims. The government did not screen vulnerable populations abroad for indicators of human trafficking. The government investigated fewer trafficking cases and convicted fewer alleged perpetrators. The government suspended international labor recruitment for eight months, due to a lack of strong regulations for labor recruitment enterprises. Therefore Uganda remained on Tier 2 Watch List for the second consecutive year.

PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS:

Implement the NRG to systematically identify and refer trafficking victims to appropriate care, including by screening for trafficking indicators among vulnerable populations, such as women in commercial sex, migrants and Cuban medical professionals. • Increase efforts to complete judicial proceedings, while respecting due process and the rights of the accused. • Increase coordination between police investigators and prosecutors of trafficking crimes. • Expand protective services for victims, specifically through partnerships with NGOs, including by allocating resources. •While respecting due process of law, increase efforts to investigate trafficking cases and prosecute alleged traffickers, including allegations of official complicity in trafficking crimes. • Increase training for Ugandan embassy staff on assisting trafficking victims abroad, including victim identification, providing temporary shelter, or identifying local NGO shelters for victim referral, and facilitating the repatriation of victims. • Cease penalization of victims for unlawful acts their traffickers forced them to commit. • Where feasible, assign labor attachés to Ugandan embassies to monitor migrants abroad. • Further prioritize investigating and prosecuting traffickers who exploit children, especially from the Karamoja region, in forced begging and child sex trafficking in brothels. • Implement strong regulations and oversight of labor recruitment companies and improve enforcement, including by continuing to investigate and prosecute those involved in fraudulent labor recruitment. • Increase bilateral negotiations with neighboring and destination country governments on migrant worker rights, including on the release and repatriation of Ugandan migrant workers exploited by employers abroad and on mutually enforceable standard contracts. • Proactively investigate and punish labor recruiters who fraudulently recruit Ugandans and eliminate all worker-paid recruitment fees. • Establish a unified system of documenting and collecting data on human trafficking cases. • Enact witness protection legislation and implement a systematic victim-witness support program. • Increase national awareness-raising efforts, specifically for teachers, parents, and community leaders. • Accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

PROSECUTION

The government maintained mixed law enforcement efforts. The 2009 anti-trafficking act criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking, and it prescribed punishments of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for offenses involving adult victims and up to life imprisonment for those involving child victims. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as kidnapping. The law also criminalized the use of a child in any armed conflict and prescribed penalties of up to the death penalty. The Children Amendment Act of 2016 conflicted with the 2009 anti-trafficking act in some respects—for example, it defined child sex trafficking to require force, fraud, or coercion, which was inconsistent with the definition of trafficking under international law, and it prescribed substantially lower penalties for the crime.

In 2020, the government reported investigating 214 incidents of human trafficking involving 154 suspects; of these incidents, 118 were internal, 93 transnational, and three unknown. This was a decrease compared with investigating 252 incidents (19 internal and 222 transnational) in 2019. During the reporting period, the government prosecuted 283 defendants for trafficking crimes in 202 cases; of these, 161 cases were domestic and 41 transnational; 140 were sex trafficking cases, 54 were labor trafficking cases, and eight were unknown; and 192 defendants were male, 44 female, 46 unknown, and one was a labor recruitment company. In 2019, the government prosecuted 73 cases involving 87 suspects in court. In 2020, courts convicted 11 traffickers under the anti-trafficking act in nine cases – six for sex trafficking and five for forced labor. This was a decrease compared to convicting 16 traffickers in 2019. Two traffickers received prison terms of seven years; one trafficker received a prison sentence of two years; one trafficker received a sentence of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 1 million Ugandan Shillings (UGX) ($274); one trafficker received a sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment; three defendants received sentences of two years’ imprisonment each; and courts gave one trafficker the option of two years’ imprisonment or a 2 million UGX fine ($548). Courts had not yet sentenced two additional traffickers at the end of the reporting period. The penalties imposed in five of these convictions were not in line with the requirements of the penal code as they did not receive the adequate sentencing outlined by the code. The government reported 26 cases remained under inquiry and 129 remained pending in court at the end of the reporting season. A German national charged with multiple counts of human trafficking died in custody; the trafficking case remained pending at the end of the reporting period. Observers reported authorities were more likely to prosecute sex trafficking cases than forced labor cases. NGOs reported the government increased the number of human trafficking trainings to prosecutors.

The Coordination Office to Prevent Trafficking in Persons (COPTIP) was responsible for compiling law enforcement data; pandemic-related restrictions limited its ability to collect information from local governments. Authorities suspended court hearings and appearances in March 2020 due to COVID-19 risks and judicial activities did not fully resume until June 2020. NGOs reported court closures and delayed court hearings hindered the ability of judicial officials and prosecutors to remain in touch with victim witnesses waiting for cases to be tried. The government reported insufficient shelter space forced authorities to send victims home, making it difficult for them to provide testimony in court proceedings and consequently impeding completion of trials. CID reported a lack of interpreters also hindered completion of trafficking trials. An NGO reported authorities misreported child trafficking crimes as “defilement” cases. Nonetheless, NGOs reported closed borders allowed law enforcement to shift their focus from transnational to domestic trafficking cases.

Corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year. In June 2020, authorities charged an army officer with child sex trafficking after allegations arose that he abducted and sexually exploited a 16-year-old girl; the case remained pending at the end of the reporting period. In September 2020, an international organization launched an investigation into an allegation of the sexual exploitation of a female by an international organization’s staff from the Karamoja region at a compound in Moroto. The international organization’s investigation concluded the allegation was unsubstantiated. In 2019, the State House Anti-Corruption Unit launched an investigation following complaints of government officials’ involvement in human trafficking; however, the government did not publish any reports or arrest officials by the end of the reporting period. In 2018, the government reported investigating security officers at Malaba Border and Entebbe Airport, as well as officials of the Civil Aviation Authority and Ground Handling Companies at Entebbe Airport, for alleged involvement in trafficking crimes; it did not report any updates on these cases, which remained pending at the end of the reporting period. Media and senior government officials reported high-level officials may have owned or been associated with some labor recruitment companies suspected of trafficking. An NGO in 2018 continued to report some complicit immigration officers at border crossings assisted traffickers, and several NGOs alleged some senior police officials in Kampala protected traffickers from arrest and prosecution.

In 2019, UPF announced the creation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Department within the Criminal Investigation and Crime Intelligence Department; however, the new anti-trafficking department had yet to receive final approval at the end of the current reporting period. In the interim, the anti-trafficking department utilized CID Sexual and Children Offenses Department resources as a short-term solution to implement the department’s efforts. In 2020, UPF created seven human trafficking officer positions and the CID established human trafficking desk officers at border posts and at the Entebbe International Airport. The government maintained a trafficking-specific desk in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office responsible for prosecuting trafficking crimes. The government, in partnership with an NGO, designated 136 Trafficking in Persons Focal Prosecutors across the country to gather and track human trafficking data. In response to the pandemic lockdown, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions created and implemented an electronic application to facilitate communication among 350 police and prosecutors and to share resources on effective methods for human trafficking investigations and prosecutions across the country. The government, in partnership with an NGO, trained 82 police officers, 32 investigators, and 252 prosecutors in 16 regions, compared to zero in 2019. COPTIP reported the training curriculum for both new and experienced police and immigration officers incorporated modules on human trafficking; however, the government did not report how many officials received the training during the reporting period. Ugandan police and immigration officers continued to lack an understanding of the anti-trafficking law and may have misclassified cases or encouraged victims to accept financial compensation from traffickers in exchange for dropping their cases. Law enforcement officials did not always coordinate with the ODPP, frequently resulting in cases that did not proceed to prosecution or that courts dismissed, because the investigations were incomplete and did not comply with protocols for admissible evidence. The government collaborated with Burundi and Kenya to prosecute suspected traffickers; one case involved Karamojong girls exploited in Kenya, and a second case involved Burundian girls sexually exploited in Uganda.

PROTECTION

The government maintained mixed protection efforts. The government identified 666 victims in 2020 – 497 were transnational, 166 internal, and three unknown; 575 female, 88 male, and three unknown; 222 children and 441 adults, and three unknown. This compares with identifying 455 and 650 victims in 2019 and 2018, respectively. A majority of the identified victims were subjected to forced labor and most transnational cases were identified en route to Kenya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Authorities reported a significant decrease in victims identified between April to September 2020 due to the government’s suspension of internal and international transportation in response to the pandemic, which resulted in a reduced number of screenings for trafficking indicators at these border crossings. Authorities reported the number of victims identified increased in November and December as a result of reopening air travel and the resumption of international travel. An international organization reported identifying 20 Ugandan victims abroad. An NGO reported identifying 150 child labor and sex trafficking victims. Another NGO reported identifying 660 victims—301 female and 359 male—and providing rehabilitative assistance services to 91 victims—25 female and 66 male.

In July 2020, the government adopted the NRG but had not fully implemented it by the end of the reporting period. The NRG provided victim referral guidelines for stakeholders—including police, immigration officials, the prosecution unit, and NGOs—and described social services resources and recommendations for victim protection. Observers reported the NRG lacked identification guidance for vulnerable populations like women and children. The government continued to operate under the implementing regulations of the 2009 anti-trafficking act; these regulations outlined responsibilities for relevant stakeholders, including law enforcement, medical professionals, and civil society members, to combat trafficking.

For the fifth consecutive year, the government did not report how many victims it referred to care or directly assisted. An NGO reported providing shelter, educational, reintegration, and repatriation services to 86 victims. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Control submitted draft victim identification and referral procedures to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for review; the procedures remained pending at the end of the reporting period. The government reported a lack of short-term human trafficking shelters limited the ability to provide adequate protection services during raids and law enforcement operations. CID headquarters could only house 10 people at any given time, which was insufficient for the number of victims requiring assistance. Most shelters were located in the central and eastern parts of the country, limiting assistance to victims elsewhere. Authorities reported a lack of shelters, limited government vehicles, and intimidation from traffickers resulted in authorities dropping 75 percent of cases. Due to authorities’ inability to place victims in shelters, many child trafficking victims exploited by their guardians were forced to return to live with them. The government did not report allocating resources to NGOs that provide protective services for human trafficking victims. The government continued to collaborate with NGOs to refer identified victims to care and with international organizations to provide the vast majority of victim services via referrals to NGO-operated shelters, which provided psychological counseling, medical treatment, family tracing, resettlement support, and vocational education without contributing in-kind or financial support. Victim care, although high-quality, remained inadequate in quantity, and available services were primarily for children and women, with few NGOs offering shelter for adult males. Adult victims had the option to enter or exit shelters on their own accord; however, law enforcement placed child victims in shelters and restricted their liberties for security and protection purposes. Once deemed secure by shelter staff, probation officers, or local officials, shelters reintegrated children into their home communities. The government reported continuing to fund the resettlement of street children identified by officials. The government reported training law enforcement and police officers on how to conduct child-friendly rescues of children from the street. The government reported difficulty referring victims to services due to the pandemic restrictions during the March to October 2020 lockdown. Due to the pandemic lockdown restrictions, law enforcement held child victims in police barracks, at police officers’ homes, or at the homes of local government officials. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the government had difficulty providing food to victims. An NGO reported rotating shelter staff to reduce infection and staff difficulties commuting during lockdown and curfew hours; two of its shelters became quarantine centers for children, further limiting the care available for trafficking victims. The government and NGOs reported an increase in demand for shelter services due to an increase in domestic trafficking cases and government enforced lockdown and movement restrictions.

The government reported insufficient funds and a lack of embassies in destination countries hindered its ability to repatriate and provide assistance to Ugandan victims identified abroad during the reporting period. Ugandan embassies registered workers, organized their travel documents, and provided ad hoc shelter and food services to identified victims; however, the government did not have sufficient resources to provide these services to all workers and victims. The government reported repatriating 12 girls from Kenya. The government collaborated with foreign governments, international organizations, and NGOs to repatriate 2,400 Ugandans in 2020 and reported an unknown number were victims of human trafficking; however, the government did not report screening or identifying any human trafficking victims among this population during the reporting period, compared with repatriating four trafficking victims in 2019 and 90 in 2018. An international organization repatriated 38 human trafficking victims from Saudi Arabia and additional NGOs provided services to victims abroad. NGOs reported providing services to repatriated victims as needed. The government did not report using a temporary shelter in UAE or an emergency fund in Saudi Arabia for distressed Ugandan nationals, including trafficking victims. In response to the continued abuse of migrant workers’ rights abroad, the Uganda Association of External Recruitment Agencies, a private sector entity, continued to employ a Labor Liaison Office in Saudi Arabia during the reporting period; however, some civil society members expressed concern about possible conflicts of interest between labor attachés and victim assistance due to the nature of the work since labor organizations are often represented by private businesses.

Judicial officers often encouraged trafficking victims to participate in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers to prevent the victimization of others, but some reports indicated that law enforcement’s limited capacity and inadequate sensitivity in engaging trafficking victims discouraged many from cooperating in investigations. The absence of victim-witness protection legislation and a protection program hindered some investigations and prosecutions because perpetrators would threaten and blackmail victims and witnesses to discourage their participation in trials. Due to a lack of long-term shelters, victims exploited by their guardians returned to their exploitative situations before authorities completed trials. The government drafted policies that would provide cooperating victim-witnesses with assistance, support, and safety; however, the policies had yet to be finalized at the end of the reporting period. Generally, policies in High Court cases provided victims and witnesses with transportation, physical protection, shelter, interpretation services and legal counsel, but this was ad hoc and inconsistent in practice, and some reports indicated police would temporarily shelter cooperating victims in their homes. NGOs and international organizations reported providing psycho-social support to child victims to ensure protection during court proceedings and sometimes reintegrated victims into their home communities. Ugandan law permitted foreign trafficking victims to remain in Uganda during the investigation of their cases and to apply for residence and work permits, but the government did not report granting any victims such benefits during the reporting period. The law permitted victims to keep their identities anonymous by using voice distortion and video link facilities, but the practice had not yet been implemented at the end of the reporting period. The law allowed victims to file civil suits against the government or their alleged traffickers for restitution compensation; the government did not report courts ordering restitution or compensation during the reporting period.

While the 2009 anti-trafficking act prohibited the penalization of trafficking victims for unlawful acts their traffickers coerced them to commit, NGOs reported cases in which police pursued charges against victims who had used forged paperwork to escape their exploitative situations and cases where recruitment companies sued victims for their breach of contract. In prior years, observers reported police sometimes treated street children as criminals and arbitrarily arrested and detained them in detention facilities. During the reporting period, authorities reported screening 240 children from the streets of Kampala for human trafficking, of which 38 were Karamojong children, and sending 106 children to shelters where they received care and assistance and eventually were returned to their families, compared with 725 children identified and two referred to shelters in 2019. Many NGOs reported the government did not adequately address or prioritize internal trafficking of children from the Karamoja region, including forced begging and child sex trafficking in brothels.

PREVENTION

The government minimally increased prevention efforts. The National Task Force, led by the MIA Permanent Secretary, with COPTIP serving as its secretariat, continued to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts. In July 2020, the government signed and launched the NAP; however, the NAP had yet to be fully implemented at the end of the reporting period. The government reported the NAP mandated that COPTIP should receive annual funding from parliament and complementary funding from government agencies. COPTIP received 168 million UGX ($46,040) in 2020. COPTIP did not report its budget in 2019.

COPTIP continued to maintain authority to publish an annual report on government and non-government bodies’ anti-trafficking efforts, which it published during the reporting period. COPTIP hired a data officer to improve data collection and analysis; however, the government and NGOs reported poor data collection hindered the government’s efforts to plan and implement national efforts to combat human trafficking.

Previously, the Parliament passed the Kampala Child Protection Ordinance of 2019, which criminalized giving money, food, or clothing to children on the street; criminalized children loitering in public places, begging, soliciting, vending, or hawking; and banned the sale of alcohol and drugs to children. The law allowed authorities to fine offenders 40,000 UGX ($10.96), sentence offenders to up to six months’ imprisonment, or both. The solicitor general had yet to approve the ordinance by the end of the reporting period, inhibiting its implementation, though if enacted, it had the potential to facilitate the penalization of child trafficking victims. The government did not operate an anti-trafficking hotline during the reporting period; however, the government’s child helpline identified 81 potential trafficking victims through calls in 2020. The government reported the hotline was non-operational for periods of time due to the pandemic.

Immigration officials continued to scrutinize travel documents, passports, and reasons for travel before clearing travelers to depart Uganda for work in foreign countries. The government continued to implement its ban on Ugandans traveling abroad to Oman due to ongoing reports of abuse and human trafficking. The government collaborated with the Kenyan government to draft a bilateral labor agreement; however, the agreement remained pending at the end of the reporting period. Uganda maintained two bilateral labor agreements, with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and one memorandum of understanding with UAE; however, officials acknowledged the agreements with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE did not adequately protect Ugandan workers. The Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD) encouraged Ugandan workers to seek employment only in countries with which Uganda has labor agreements. In 2020, the government established Joint Implementation Committees to implement the bilateral labor agreements; however, pandemic-related travel restrictions limited the committees’ activities. The government’s external employment management system, which functioned as a “one stop” internet portal where Ugandans could search and apply for all pre-vetted overseas employment opportunities through licensed recruitment companies, remained operational at the end of the reporting period; however, the government reported processing a limited number of work orders due to the pandemic and did not clear any applicants to leave the country during the reporting period. The government reported a lack of labor attachés at embassies abroad significantly hindered the government’s ability to monitor the possible labor exploitation of workers abroad.

The 2005 Employment Regulations required labor recruitment companies to register, undergo a thorough vetting process, and maintain a minimum bank deposit and a credit line, to ensure they could repatriate workers. The government reported vetting all labor requests received by local companies and all contracts executed between international employers and Ugandan businesses. The government suspended labor migration due to the pandemic in March 2020 and announced phased reintroduction of international labor recruitment, with the exception of domestic workers, in October 2020. In November 2020, MGLSD approved labor recruiters to begin recruiting domestic workers again. The government investigated and prosecuted one labor export and recruitment company during the reporting period. The government reported an increase in human trafficking amongst labor companies due to the inability of workers to find opportunities abroad. Authorities, the media, and NGOs reported government officials that owned labor companies were complicit in human trafficking. The government lacked worker protection provisions and did not prohibit employers, recruiters, and labor agents from charging worker recruitment fees, confiscating workers’ passports or travel documents, switching contracts without workers’ consent, or withholding wages as means of keeping workers in a state of compelled service; consequently migrant workers, specifically domestic workers, were vulnerable to traffickers. MGLSD, with financial and technical support from international organizations, reviewed migrant worker regulations and drafted a report with recommendations; however, the report remained under review by legal advisors at the end of the reporting period. MGLSD, in collaboration with an international organization, launched a new project to strengthen internal government mechanisms for safe labor migration, build capacity, develop a grievance reporting and referral tool, and develop ethical practices among labor recruitment companies. Authorities, NGOs, and the media reported government regulations remained insufficient to prevent human trafficking amongst fraudulent labor companies and labor recruitment. Corruption reportedly inhibited oversight of labor recruitment firms, as did insufficient staffing and funding of government oversight agencies and loopholes in the law. In 2018, the government reported unlicensed labor recruitment companies were responsible for trafficking more than 90 percent of the identified victims, although licensed labor recruitment companies were also reportedly involved. The government allowed legal placement fees of 50,000 UGX ($13.70). In February 2020, the government announced all labor export companies must refund any fees in excess of this amount. The government did not report suspending any labor companies’ licenses, excepting the suspension for all labor recruitment companies from March-October, compared with suspending six labor export companies for charging potential workers illegal registration and placement fees during the previous reporting period. MGLSD contracted private companies to conduct mandatory pre-departure training for domestic workers who were traveling to the Middle East and utilizing registered labor recruitment companies. The weeklong residential training, paid for by the recruitment company, trained 60-70 women each week, including on domestic work, contract appreciation, understanding of the bilateral agreements, how to contact help, and worker rights. To mark World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, the government conducted two awareness raising campaigns via Kampala radio stations discussing methods to reduce human trafficking and partnered with international organizations to share human trafficking awareness newspaper articles and television broadcasts. The government, in collaboration with NGOs, also hosted public sensitization campaigns via newspapers, radio, television, and social media that focused on human trafficking trends, safe migration, and protection of vulnerable children. As mandated by the 2015 Registration of Persons Act, the government continued to register its citizens and provide them with national identification numbers. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The government reported an increase in demand for commercial sex due to the pandemic lockdown and restricted movement; law enforcement reported a shift in commercial sex from bars and brothels to residential homes. Uganda was not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

TRAFFICKING PROFILE

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Uganda, and traffickers exploit victims from Uganda abroad. Ugandan children as young as seven are exploited in forced labor in agriculture, fishing, forestry, cattle herding, mining, stone quarrying, brick making, carpentry, steel manufacturing, street vending, bars, restaurants, gold mining, and domestic service. Traffickers exploit children in commercial sex. Women, children, internally displaced persons, and migrants may have been victims of forced labor or sex trafficking, and Cuban medical personnel working in Uganda may have been forced to work by the Cuban government. The pandemic and the government’s lockdown measurers, including closure of international airports and land borders, a curfew, restrictions on travel, restricted movement between districts, and closure of all schools, workplaces, and government offices, shifted trafficking trends. Authorities and NGOs reported the closure of international airports and land borders decreased international trafficking due to migrant workers unable to get to their destination; at the same time, domestic trafficking, including child sex trafficking increased. In 2020, Kenyan authorities identified Ugandan victims en route to Nairobi.

Recruiters target girls and women aged 13-24 years for domestic sex trafficking, especially near sports tournaments and road construction projects. In 2018, an international organization estimated there are between 7,000 and 12,000 children exploited in sex trafficking in Uganda. An international organization and an NGO reported most internal trafficking victims are Ugandans, many of whom are from the northeastern and eastern region, specifically Karamojong children whom traffickers exploit in forced begging and commercial sex in brothels. In 2020, the government and civil society reported traffickers sold children from Karamoja at markets in the eastern region for 20,000-50,000 UGX ($5.48- $13.70); traffickers exploited them in forced labor as beggars, domestic workers, and in commercial sex. Consequently, in 2021, NGOs reported traffickers adjusted their methods to avoid apprehension and had children travel alone to meet traffickers in other towns or at international borders, where they organized the markets. In 2020, researchers reported an increase in child labor in the sugarcane industry. In 2019, an NGO reported local authorities’ efforts to remove domestic child trafficking victims from the streets caused children to move to work as vendors in markets where they are vulnerable to exploitation. In prior years, researchers reported there were approximately 3,800 children living on the streets of Kampala and three other major towns and an additional 11,700 children working on the streets but sleeping elsewhere. Reportedly, traffickers, called “elders,” force some street children to beg and exploit girls in commercial sex. The “elders” are a well-organized network of traffickers; NGOs alleged complicit officials allow the practice to continue. A local organization reported traffickers required parents in the Acholi subregion in northern Uganda to have their children work on farms to repay debts. In 2018, an NGO alleged traffickers recruited children from Napak district, northeastern Uganda, and then sold them as domestic workers for 20,000 UGX ($5.48). Media reported some parents sell their children to traffickers who resell the children for approximately 30,000 UGX ($8.22). In 2018, an international organization reported separating four Ugandan children from armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In 2018, observers reported the government detained and placed on bond some trafficking victims, including children, in an attempt to compel them to cooperate with and periodically report to law enforcement in support of criminal investigations. In 2017, child trafficking victims in need of immediate shelter often stayed at police stations, sometimes sleeping in impounded vehicles, or at a juvenile detention center while awaiting placement in more formal shelters.

Traffickers compel some children from Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Sudan into forced agricultural labor and sex trafficking in Uganda. South Sudanese children in refugee settlements in northern Uganda are at risk of trafficking. In 2017, individuals from Rwanda and Somalia, including a Somali refugee from Nakivale Refugee Settlement, were victims of internal trafficking. In 2018, there were several media reports of alleged complicity of police officers in the sex trafficking of child and female refugees.

Young women remained the most at risk for transnational trafficking, usually seeking employment as domestic workers in Kenya and the Middle East; at times traffickers fraudulently recruited Ugandan women for employment and then exploited them in sex trafficking. Traffickers exploit Ugandans in forced labor and sex trafficking in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. In 2020, victims from Burundi, Kenya, and South Sudan transited Uganda en route to other countries, notably, the Middle East. In 2020, school closures and financial struggles of caregivers increased the vulnerability of children to human trafficking, specifically child sex trafficking, during the pandemic lockdown. The pandemic increased child sacrifice—a human trafficking crime delineated under the Ugandan anti-trafficking law. In 2019, media reported traffickers sold girls from markets in Katakwi district and transported the girls to Nairobi where they were exploited as domestic workers; some of the girls worked for Somali immigrants in Nairobi and were further transported to Somalia where they were exploited by the Al Shabab terrorist group. In 2018, media and government officials alleged Ugandan girls were being sold in a “slave market” in the UAE.

Extremely high labor recruitment fees sometimes led to situations of debt bondage. To circumvent the government ban on migrant work in Oman, some licensed and unlicensed agencies send Ugandans through Kenya and Tanzania. Official complicity may have hindered government oversight of labor recruitment agencies. In 2018, COPTIP reported that traffickers appear to be increasingly organized and some may have formed regional trafficking networks. The government and an NGO reported an increase in victims with university degrees as traffickers target graduates with the promise of skilled jobs abroad. The government and NGOs reported cases involving victims that were recruited by licensed companies in which victims paid high administrative fees based on promised high-paid jobs abroad; however, upon arrival, they found themselves locked into contracts in low-paid domestic work. Traffickers used local radio to announce fraudulent job opportunities in Kampala to target children and young people to lure them into exploitative situations. NGOs reported that traffickers are frequently relatives or friends of victims or may pose as wealthy women or labor recruiters promising vulnerable Ugandans, frequently from rural areas, well-paid jobs abroad or in Uganda’s metropolitan areas. Reportedly, pastors, imams, and local leaders at churches and mosques in Uganda have also assisted in the recruitment of domestic workers abroad, mostly for Middle Eastern countries; these leaders encourage female domestic workers to take these jobs and in turn, receive a fee per worker from recruiters. Some traffickers threatened to harm the victims’ family or confiscated travel documents. In 2020, due to a government ordinance that penalizes giving food and money to child beggars, traffickers moved children from the streets to work in markets instead.