Crack the whip on refugee abusers

This newspaper and its sister media outlet, NTV, in its Panorama joint investigations, lifted the lid on a very disturbing issue brewing under the heavy blanket of refugees.

The undercover investigation exposed the dark world of trafficking girls into the country under the pretext of giving them sanctuary as urban refugees, only to expose them to sex trade against their will and sometimes at the expense of their lives. The pimps take a paltry Shs100,000 to deliver the girls to a client.

One of the victims, a 17-year-old Ethiopian in the expose, for instance, said she was brought into the country through Kenya and was helped to register as a refugee at Old Kampala Police Station and at the Office of the Prime Minister. She did not know she had just signed up to sex trade and on her first assignment, took home Shs80,000!

Another refugee from Burundi, 24, said an OPM official had demanded sex from her in order to help her process a permanent refugee identity card after she failed to raise Shs1m for the same.

The expose not only exposes our systemic lack of morals, but also takes us several steps backwards given the rosy report cards the international community has accorded us for being a role model in regard to our hospitality to the more than 1.4 million refugees.

The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Antonio Guterres, for example, in June last year hailed the Ugandan government for its generosity in hosting refugees.

“In a world where so many people are selfishly closing their doors, closing their borders, not allowing refugees to come, this example deserves praise and admiration from the whole international community,” Guterres told reporters at the Imvepi Refugee Reception Centre in Arua District.

In January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Filippo Grandi, also praised the “open border” policy of Uganda, which is currently receiving up to 500 refugees a day.

“I want to thank the Ugandan government, local government and its people… despite recent influxes Uganda has the most progressive refugee policies in Africa, if not the world,” Grandi told journalists after touring the refugee settlement.

Mr Bronwell Kantande, the UNHCR’s Country Representative, and Mr Musa Ecweru, the State Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness, both acknowledge having information regarding the vice. Given then that the expose is not news to government and the UNHCR officials, we ask the authorities to use the clues this media house has given and those they have to fast-track the investigations and bring to book the culprits.

If we must host the refugees, then we must give them protection against such opportunists.