200 girls rescued from traffickers in Kampala

200 girls rescued from traffickers in Kampala. The Crime Intelligence Unit raided three homes in Kampala and rescued over 200 girls and women who were allegedly being trafficked to Arab countries.

The unit started surveillance on the houses after a tip-off from one of the parents who had established that her daughter was being kept in Lungujja.

Donned in casual clothes, the team surrounded the homes in Lungujja, Lusaze, and Rubaga road in the night hours where they found girls in their late teens as well as old women in their early 50s piled in houses on promises of getting them jobs abroad.

At Lungujja, 85 women and girls were rescued, 60 were rescued in Lusaze while 57 others were rescued from a secret house along Rubaga road. Security personnel and a team of detectives have since established that the girls and women were being kept there by directors of Striper International disguising as a recruitment agency.

Isaac Kiyimba, the chairperson of Lusaze, said people trafficking girls and women are often powerful and threaten them when they attempt to make inquiries. Kiyimba said one of the alleged directors of Striper International showed him a letter from the Ministry of Gender that he had been authorized to export people for jobs even though he was denied access to the premises.

Luke Owoyesigyire, the Deputy Kampala Police Spokesperson, said some of the victims had alerted their parents about the bad conditions they were living in.

Owoyesigyire said some of the girls had stayed on the premises for more than three months. On a quick search, Striper International is among the labor export companies on the updated list of labor exporters by the ministry of gender.

Police have arrested Emmanuel Sekayiba one of the directors and he is being detained at Old Kampala. Two of the other directors identified as Semanda Faisal and Tinyenfuza Lubibi are allegedly on the run.

Manila Irene who is one of the victims expressed dissatisfaction with police raiding the secret homes saying they were tired of being idle and was determined to leave the country for greener jobs abroad.

Namwaja Halima said she was a teacher and schools have been closed for years in a bid to control the spread of Covid19. Namwaja said she has been struggling with life and she had got an opportunity to go abroad for work.

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