Tortured maid survives death in middle east but returns with broken spine

Ms Sofia Nakiseka (L) supports her sister Irene Nabbanja (R) whose backbone was broken while in Oman at their residence in Seguku on Entebbe Road in Wakiso District. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI 

In Summary

In 2014, Irene Nabbanja, 21, went to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and later Oman in search of casual labour after she failed to raise fees and finding employment in Uganda. Both countries located in the Middle East. Nabbanja shares her ordeal on how she survived death while in the two Arab countries for the 14 months she worked as a housemaid.

Q: Where did you get the idea to travel and work in Dubai?
A: I was in Senior Four vacation in 2014. By then, I was 18 years and my father had since developed a mental problem and could not take care of us anymore. That means he did not have money for me to continue with school. So my mother brought up the idea that I go to Dubai, get a job, raise money for me to continue with my studies and also pay fees for my three other siblings. We also had other debts with money lenders who wanted to take our house.

Q: How did your journey to Dubai start?
A: My mother had a friend who also worked in Dubai as a caretaker. She connected us to the first agent but who then disappeared with the money which we had paid for the passport. We were then connected to a second agent, Akclam Kitandwe, who got me a passport after one and half months. I also had to wait for a full month as Mr Kitandwe processed my ticket and visa.
I went through the Malaba border where I connected to Kenya as my agent had organised. I used one of the escape routes at Malaba. At this point, I had to pay Shs20,000 to a boda boda rider. I also had to surrender my passport to him and also pay Shs250,000 for my passport to be stamped at the border. I had to pay another Shs350,000 to my agent for him to connect me to the agent in Dubai who was also to connect me to where I was going to work.
The ticket and visa were supposed to be bought by my new boss, where I was going to work in Dubai.
After crossing the border into Kenya, I caught up with my agent with whom we boarded a bus to Nairobi.

Q: From Nairobi, how then did you proceed to Dubai?
A: In Nairobi, I met 10 other Ugandan girls. We spent about 10 days in Nairobi, but during which we had to survive on our own. We catered for our meals and other expenses. Our agent only paid for the hotel room were we slept. This they had not told us when we were leaving Uganda. But somehow, we had to survive on the little money we had travelled with.
After one and a half weeks, we were each set to leave for our destination countries. That day we left six of us; the three of us were headed to Dubai while the other three girls were taken to Oman.

Q: Upon reaching Dubai, how were you received?
A: In Dubai, we were picked from the airport by a cab driver who also took our passports and return air tickets even before we had reached the other agent’s office in Dubai. It’s from there that my boss came to pick me. The agent in Dubai gave my boss an option on whether I should or should not carry my phone. Somehow my boss accepted that I could stay with it before we left for Fujairah city.
At the house, my boss lived in a bungalow with 11 children whom I was supposed to take care of. These, on top of the 10 cars I had to wash on a daily basis.
I had to start working right away, five minutes after reaching the house.

Q: How was your daily schedule like?
A: I woke up at 4.:00am and slept at 11pm. This was my daily routine for the one year that I spent at this household. But despite the heavy workload, it was always followed with mistreatment and insults from my boss’ wife.
When I had just gone to the house, I first slept in the kitchen before I was shifted to the small house which they had constructed for me and another elderly Indonesian caretaker.

Q: What were the terms of employment for the time that you worked at the house?
A: Before leaving for Dubai, I had agreed with my agent on Shs680, 000 which I was supposed to receive monthly but they always paid me Shs600,000.
I feared my boss and yet I had no means to speak to my agent in Uganda.

Q: Do you remember your worst experience while in Dubai?
A: The day I survived rape from one of the elder boys in the house, almost the same age with me. On the fateful day, we were left alone at home. He had called me to his room on the last floor of the flat where I used to pick their dirty clothes for washing and also clean their rooms. I fought him as he tried to pull me towards his bed until I escaped.
It was horrible because I had to ensure that I don’t hurt him as I would be punished and yet I had seen him with a pistol in one of his closets. I knew he was a soldier.
But even after escaping, he had warned to shoot me should I tell anyone in the house about what had happened. From that time on, I started fearing everywhere in the house hoping he would come back and rape me. I cried all the time and could not work anymore. Instead, they took me to police because I had not yet finished my contract and yet I could not work anymore.
At the police, they noticed that I was not feeling well and they advised my boss to take me to hospital where I was diagnosed with insomnia – a sleep disorder that is characterised by difficulty in falling or staying asleep. At hospital, I was sedated and i slept for three days. The doctors then asked my boss to return me home so I could rest for at least two months.

Q: Having returned to Kampala, how did you then connect to Oman?
A: When I returned home, I found more family challenges than I had left behind before leaving for Dubai. Our family house had been taken by money lenders. My mother had borrowed money during the time I was in school and the other money we had borrowed before I had left for Dubai.
We had delayed to pay back, that is how our house was taken. When I returned home, my mother and my four siblings had moved to my step grandmother’s home where I joined them.
I first rested for the two months that the doctors had told me, but after which I decided to go back and work so that we could buy back our house. I could not sit and see my family suffering and homeless.
It’s then that I contacted my agent who also agreed to get me another job but this time in Oman. I agreed with him (the agent) because I was desperate for money.
But my agent had this time warned me never to bother or even call him should I fail to complete the two -year contract the way I had done in the first contract.
I still paid the Shs350,000 for him to connect me to Oman and all the other fees I had paid in first time I travelled.

Q: Was there any difference in the working conditions in Oman from those in Oman?
A: The work load in Oman was even worse. Besides taking care of an elderly lady, and seven children, my boss would always take me to her relatives whenever they had ceremonies, to do work till late yet I had to always return very early in the morning and take care of her grandmother; I hardly got time to sleep.`
I worked at the house for one month and could not take it anymore. I had fatigue and cried for them to return me to the Arabian agent in the Sohar City so that I could return home. They first hesitated but later yielded to my plea but also forced me to leave behind my phone and the clothes plus that month’s salary.
On reaching the Arabian agent’s office, he kept me in one of the rooms on the fourth floor where I found six other Ugandan girls who had also returned on failing to finish their contracts.
At one time, some girls had told me they had escaped to the Kenyan embassy but could not be helped because the agent had their passports and when they called him he had promised to return them back to Uganda but instead returned them back to the confinement house.
The girls narrated to me their ordeal; that the Arabian agent would beat and undress them in search of money or so that they could accept to return to work.
Another girl in the house had developed a mental problem but the agent had refused to return her home because he wanted her relatives to first send him Shs5m for her ticket.
The seven of us were also fed on one kilogramme of rice and chicken each week.

Q: So how did you end up with a broken spine?
A:The Arabian agent stopped me from sleeping in the same house with the other girls. I had to sleep in the kitchen where they kept a gas cooker which was always left loose. I always got suffocated.
One night, I felt suffocated so I passed my head through one of the holes near the window to call for help from someone I had seen outside the building.
Somehow I slid and fell from the fourth floor to the ground.
The police, on being alerted by a passersby, took me to hospital where it was confirmed that my spinal cord had been injured and also the bones on the upper right and lower left legs were also fractured. The doctors forced the agent to buy me a corset which I had to wear until I would be operated, aftwer he had promised them that he was to return me home.
Instead, he returned me to the incarceration house even when I would only pass out urine through a catheter, could not stand or even walk by myself. The agent had threatened to abandon me into the desert if my family did not raise the Shs20m to fund my air ticket.
But even with the lesser money he had asked for, when he communicated to my other agent based in Kenya on the amount of money needed for my return, the latter told my family that I had died and asked them to pay for Shs100m or else they would never recover my body.
My family was able to borrow Shs3m and sent to my agent in Kenya. He did not deliver to the Arabian agent and switched off his phone. My family sent another Shs2m, this time to the Arab agent but he still insisted they send another Shs7m to make it Shs9m.
It is until I stealthily got a phone from one of the girls with whom we had been incarcerated that I informed my family I was still alive and they able to send me an e-ticket that I was able to return home in January this year. I had then spent about two weeks in ‘custody’ since the incident.

Q: How have you since survived since you returned from Oman?
A: My family was able to fundraise Shs2m to undergo a surgery on my spinal cord at Mulago hospital as soon as I returned home in January this year.
The doctors had asked for Shs3m to have my fractured legs operated as well but we have since failed to raise the money so that I can be operated. At the moment, I depend on pain killers to relieve the severe pain until we find money for the operation.
Due to the injuries, I can hardly stand or even walk on my own. I also still use the catheter to pass out urine.
I have tried to seek justice but in vain. My agent keeps threatening to kill me because he accuses me of tarnishing his name.
My mother reported the case to police and even took the matter to Moses Binoga, the anti-human trafficking task-force at the Ministry of Internal affairs, but we have not been helped since.

Scanty numbers
Despite the scanty statistics on the number of Ugandan house maids taken to Arab countries to do casual labour, a number of them have decried the atrocious exploitation at the hands of their employers. Victims of exploitation attest to being denied meals, overworked, denied leave, harassed, racially abused, underpaid or even unpaid, denied medical help, and at times sexually abused, while others die over unclear circumstances. Among the Arab countries where the victims seek labour include United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Moses Binoga the anti-human trafficking task-force at the Ministry of Internal affairs.
Our work is to monitor and coordinate with investigators and refer the suspects to police and other authorities to do the analysis. Therefore, recovery of costs from people who have been duped by traffickers is a legal case. The problem is that most people come hoping that we are going to recover their money.
I am aware of Nabbanja’s case but there were also stories that she had a mental case. So we are still waiting for her to recover properly so that we can hear from her.

Andrew Tumwine Kameraho, chairman of the Uganda Association of External Recruitment
Although there are over 55 recruitment companies licensed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, only 26 companies are under our umbrella body. Our association has a code of conduct followed by all the member companies which sign contracts with the recruitment companies in the destination countries. Mistreatment cannot arise because we provide our clients with medical insurance and working hours are stipulated in the contracts once they have reached their places of work.