By Sadique Bamwita
ENTEBBE
Two Ugandan housemaids who have been stuck and jailed in Jordan were filled with joy and excitement upon touching down at Entebbe International Airport aboard Ethiopian Airlines.
The duo identified as Faith Kwagala and Mary Lydia Nakaweesi were repatriated to Uganda on September 3, 2024, and have been in jail for close to four months.
Their repatriation followed joint efforts between the Ugandan Labor Ministry and Muko Protection Agency – a private company that helps to repatriate stranded Ugandans in the Middle East. The duo left Uganda to Jordan in February and March 2024 respectively.
Mary Lydia Nakaweesi, who spoke to the media with tears rolling down her cheeks said glory be to God as she recounted the adversity she went through for four months while in Jail in Jordan.
“I was really mistreated and didn’t get any happiness while in Jordan. I went there to work as a housemaid for one house but after two weeks, I was assigned more three houses. When I complained about the workload plus the salary my boss gave me serious death threats,” she said.
She says she was meant to earn Shs850,000 monthly but she was never paid that money for the two months she worked for her boss and that she was also denied the chance to speak to her people and also to rest.
“When I continued complaining more and more, my boss dragged me to Jordan Labor office where she falsely accused me of beating up her child. I was thoroughly caned and told to return to her home. At around midnight, I fled her house and just walked away in a desperate manner without a clear destination,” she narrates.
She added that her target was to go abroad look for capital and then start a saloon but this never materialized as she ended up in jail.
Nakaweesi thanks Muko Protection Agency and the government of Uganda through its labor ministry for returning them back home.
On the other hand, Faith Kwagala who was filled with joy and happiness stated that she is great to be back to her home country adding that the months she spent in jail enormously affected her psychologically.
“I left Uganda hoping for better things but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Reaching Jordan, I was subjected to hard labor which I couldn’t manage to do. I decided to disappear from my boss to find safety elsewhere but after two weeks, I was arrested by Jordan police and I was thrown behind bars. I was jailed for four months till our Labor Ministry intervened and helped us back to Uganda,” she says.
“There are even other Ugandans rotting in jail in the Middle East. While in jail, we were psychologically mistreated and our fellow inmates who are Arabs treated us as rubbish and they would smoke cigarettes In front of us without minding about our health. Whenever we tried to complain they would instead beat us, Kwagala narrated her ordeal.’
The Director Muko Protection Agency, Najimeddi Hisham Najim, revealed that at the moment his agency is working on over fifty (50) cases of Ugandans currently stuck and jailed in Jordan prisons.
“So far we have more than 50 cases of Ugandans stranded and jailed in Jordan. We learnt about these cases through our partners in the Middle East. We have liaised with the Ugandan Labor Ministry to help them get travel documents. What we have discovered is that what their employers first do is to confiscate the victims’ passports.
Mr. Hisham Najim further revealed that recently they wrote a proposal to the Labor Ministry to make his agency an umbrella body for Ugandans working in the Middle East so as to ensure their safety.
