A Ugandan maid working in Muscat, Oman, in the Middle East is appealing to the Ugandan government and Interpol to help facilitate her return home as soon as possible. Sumaiya Nannyanzi, 29, a single mother of four sons and resident of Nansana, Wakiso District left for greener pastures in Oman last November.
In a telephone interview last week, Nannyanzi said she is tortured and battered on a daily basis by her Muscat employer. “Even as I talk right now my body is aching, especially the chest. She kicked me several times in the chest and in the face causing nosebleed,” she said.
According to Nannyanzi, foreigners like her are more or less being treated like animals in this part of the world and she regrets having left Uganda.
“At first she was good to me but changed afterwards. She seems to be having problems with most of her relatives who have since stopped visiting. I would be dead if it wasn’t for her oldest son who used to defend me,” she said.
Nannyanzi now fears that the situation may worsen since the son was sent away from home by her mother. “These people seem to enjoy beating foreigners. At times after being beaten, I am locked inside my room for hours without food or water. Let the Ugandan government come to my rescue otherwise I may die on foreign land.”
Nannyanzi has been making calls using a smuggled handset after her original phone set was confiscated. Her employers bar her from communicating to anyone outside the home.
Family speaks out
Her younger sister Nkinzi Fatuma, a resident of Namasuba corroborated Nannyanzi’s tale. “She last communicated a week ago. She was in pain after being beaten the previous night. She requested me to pray for her so that Allah (God) enables her return home safely to see her children.”
According to Nkinzi, her sister worked in Kuwait and would send her earnings to a close and “trusted” relative back home who misused it. As such, when an opportunity in Oman presented itself, she tried her luck.
Nannyanzi’s father, Sulaiman Mukwaya, told Daily Monitor he has not heard from his daughter for a long time. “The last time she called she seemed unwell and worried,” is all what he could say.
Asked how she went to Oman, Nannyanzi says her aunt connected her.
“I was never told how much I would earn or what job I was going to do. I was given two strangers; Robert and Ronnie to take me to Nairobi by road via the Busia border point. I stayed in Nairobi for three days at the home of Lisa, a Kenyan. She is the one who took me to the airport.”
How can she be helped?
When contacted for any possible way out, Interpol Uganda had nothing much to say or offer. John Stephens Otim, a commissioner there made it clear that Interpol only deals with international crime and not civil cases.
“We always caution Ugandans that before they go outside the country to be sure where they are being taken and who is taking them. We receive such cases of human trafficking.
We advise people seeking jobs in foreign countries to go through known and registered recruitment companies approved by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social development,” Otim said as he pointed to the list on his desk.
Otim said there are many dubious companies and individuals pretending to be processing foreign jobs or scholarships for Ugandans only to lead them into servitude, forced prostitution, removal of body parts or organs and leading them into lethal illegal activities among others.
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