Report Shows An Increase In Human Trafficking Due To Lockdown

Posted by: Suubi Anne in Uganda news June 16, 2021

A report has showed that there has been an increase in human trafficking due to lockdown. According to Agnes Igoye, the deputy national coordinator for prevention of trafficking in persons at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the main gear of this trafficking is unemployment levels among the youths.

Most of the youths lost their jobs due to the lockdown that left businesses crumbling. She adds that illegal labour immigration is the most contributing factor.

“The incidents of internal trafficking were highest at 118 representing 55.1%, transnational trafficking had 93 incidents. The majority of the victims were recruited through the use of forged documents, so some of these traffickers’ forged documents are not like the one you see at passport offices to move the victims,” Igoye said.

The most unfortunate bit is that most of the victims are ignorant about the law.

“Many of these victims don’t even know their rights because after an engagement, they realised that actually, they had cases. They could report that they had evidence. We want to emphasise that there is nothing wrong with seeking employment abroad but the thing is that you have to do it in an orderly manner. And we want you to move when your human rights are not abused,” she noted.

The report shows that since 2019, human traffickers have trafficked a total of 482 people. Just between January 2020 and December 2020, authorities registered 214 incidents of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

This time around, they blame this on the lockdown due to covid. People are desperate to just survive so they have fallen victim to this.

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