By Lule Eriah
The news of Uganda lifting the ban on its citizens working as migrant workers in Jordan and Saudi Arabia didn’t only create happy faces but also a promise to uplift many families’ challenging financial situation. This includes Hajji Ismail Guma’s Mukono District in the Central part of Uganda.
He can now ably send his daughters, Aisha (20 years old) and Haddijah (26 years old), to work in Jordan as domestic workers to help put bread on the table by earning around US$230–US$280 monthly. This despite the family still living in the darkening horror where they lost their firstborn, Amiira Guma, in the fall of 2015 in unknown circumstances.
Through a recruitment agency in the capital city of Kampala, both sisters have undergone a series of orientation programmes for a full month that will help them fit in at their designated workplaces as well as create a good bond with their employers.
“Despite both of us being school dropouts, this is a very big opportunity for us to do something for our lives early enough,” Haddijah said. “Through these programmes, we have learned a lot about our strong ethical conduct as workers and believe we shall satisfy our employers to the fullest.”
In his presentation at the International Labour Organisation training workshop in Kampala, Hillary Talemwa, in charge of external employment at the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development in Uganda, noted that recruitment agencies, together with the government, designed a curriculum for youth seeking employment in Arab countries. The curriculum entails components in human resources, financial literacy, legal knowledge of contracts, and how to seek help in case one is in trouble, among others.
“We as the government help to design this curriculum to help our youth seeking employment know what to do in different kinds of situations and hold strong ethical values at work,” he said. “We invite different stakeholders, like banks, the ministry, police, and lawyers, to teach them a little about the many challenges they will face and how to resolve them.”
Adele* has been working in Jordan for 6 years, earning 260 Jordanian dinars (US$366). The orientation programme she received from the Ugandan agency for two weeks was to give her a clear picture of the foreign culture she knew nothing about.
“I learned a little of everything about the Jordanian culture, and the programme further stressed my nature of work as it emphasised a strong work ethic at my workplace,” she said. “I further learned about my rights, financial discipline, and a little about my contract terms. This has helped me build a good rapport with my employers,” she added.
Approximately 60% of the youth seeking employment in Arab countries come from upcountry villages with low literacy levels and little or no knowledge of how to operate basic home appliances. In such programmes, some things are brought to light for the first time.
Jane Nalubowa, 44, has been in the business for close to 10 years at one of Kampala’s recruitment agencies. To her, orientation programmes give a preview of a totally new culture for the workers. This also helps them reflect on the best ways they would bond with their to-be employers after deployment.
“Many people despise these programmes, but they are always a manual of dos and don’ts for many domestic workers due to the high illiteracy rates of many seeking employment”, she said. “It is from these programmes that many get a bigger picture of the new environment they are yet to join and start reflecting on how best they can bond with their employers in all aspects.”
State of market in Jordan for migrant domestic workers
According to The New Humanitarian Blog, Uganda banned its citizens from taking jobs as domestic workers in the Middle East in January 2016 after reports of mistreatment surfaced on the internet. It partially lifted the ban in March 2022 and will now allow workers to be recruited in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
In an article published on December 17, 2022, in the New Vision, a majority government-owned newspaper, the Jordanian authorities, led by the Minister and Secretary General of The Ministry of Labour, Farouk Al Hadidi, told Ambassador Abbey Walusimbi that the bilateral labour agreement between Uganda and Jordan was renewed for another five years until November 2026.
“We are happy to note that the Jordanian market is now legally open for Ugandan migrant workers, and we have committed to doing everything possible to ensure that our local recruitment companies follow the requirements of Jordan to the dot,” said Walusimbi.
The Jordanian government said that they are ready to form a Joint Technical Committee to address any administrative issues that may arise out of the Bilateral labour agreement.
Josephine worked in Jordan for two consecutive years through different recruitment agencies. To her, it is a matter of luck and God’s blessing, given that for her two episodes, she couldn’t manage to bond with her employer. A sparkling fire to her misery of even recording a video on social media seeking help.
According to Josephine, she had an orientation programme that stretched for two months instead of the one week she was told. They were held in a warehouse, where they were charged US$21 for their uniforms. This had already created anxiety about what would happen next at her place of deployment.
“In Jordan, we were still kept in a warehouse structure with no bedding and one toilet with over 60 other recruits from different countries,” she said. “By the time you are deployed, you are already fatigued and have infections”.
Josephine can’t forget the way they were deployed. When a client came, they would be lined up like in a slave market, and they would inspect who would work.
“They preferred the slim ones; those who looked beautiful with good body shaping or were over-sized were left if your pickup employer is female,” she added. “Given my body weight, which was about 80kg, it went beyond body shaming in our custody in Jordan.” She recalls being left in the warehouse for six months before deployment.
Dr. Margret Nafuna, a psychotherapeutic counsellor in Uganda, notes that with such conditions, many migrant workers even fail to perform in their deployed areas given the trauma some pass through before being deployed.
“It is in human nature that you lose interest in whatever task you have been assigned given the kind of orientation you had, which is a clear reason why some fail to bond with their employers and end up at loggerheads with them,” she said.
A chat with a number of different domestic workers revealed that many Ugandan recruitment agencies don’t have control over the employees they supply since they also play the middleman role in the whole process. A fact that doesn’t have evidence but has been long observed by the workers themselves.
The Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development has also established a programme that would help track migrant workers overseas in case of trouble, as Nation Television (NTV) reports.
But that wasn’t the case for Sandra Muwanguzi, a 27-year-old who worked in the country for two years starting in 2013. According to her, the orientation programme she received from both Ugandan and Jordanian agencies was heartwarming. She managed to create a good rapport with her employers, who made her feel at home.
“My employers welcomed me; they were flexible, and I was eager to learn all the time”, she said. “When I was leaving, they bought my plane ticket and even gave me some surplus money”.
Sandra, who was taking care of the young family she left home, is now more determined to do more than take care of them but create a life-changing avenue for them. Through her agency, they have managed to establish contact with her former employer, who has accepted to take her back.
It was a personal initiative that Sandra took to establish a good relationship with her employer, even with the trauma before deployment. Others live in conditions that even end up taking their lives, as BBC Africa Eye’s documentary “”I Wanted to Die: The Hell of Kafala Jobs in the Middle East” depicts.
Given the presence of orientation programmes in Ugandan and Jordanian recruitment agencies, many cases are still coming up on social media of domestic workers in Jordan begging for help from their home governments. This poses the question of how effective these programmes are.
