Tortured lady narrates Iraq tribulations to MPs

Tortured lady narrates Iraq tribulations to MPs

GERALD BAREEBE

Parliament

Ms Rachael Malagala, a Ugandan woman, who was allegedly tortured by her bosses after being decoyed by a private company to work in Iraq, yesterday broke into tears as she narrated to MPs the tough torments she endured while working under terrible conditions by Iraqis.

The 24-year-old resident of Katwe II in Makindye division, Kampala District, said she was taken to Iraq in May 11, 2009 by Uganda Veterans Company, a local labour recruiting firm.

She told MPs that when she was being recruited, she was promised that she would be employed as an office secretary but was forced to do domestic work.
Ms Malagala, who was supposed to meet with the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rabecca Kadaga, later in the afternoon, said she left Uganda with five other ladies but only three have managed to return.

Those that remained, she said, have been sexually abused and forced to go through hard times.
“I was in a bad condition, I was treated like a slave and I fed on the left-overs of my boss,” a tearful Ms Malagala said, as MPs looked on in disbelief, before adding: “I got sick and I couldn’t even work but I continued to be forced to wash hundreds of clothes.”

Ms Malagala’s case follows reports that several Ugandans working with the United States forces in Iraq are sexually abused and their contracts changed arbitrarily by the recruiting agencies.

In 2006, Daily Monitor reported a case of Mr Enock Bashaija and Mr Geoffrey Kawuka who were beaten into a coma by foreign officers at Alasad Airbase after they queried terms of their contract.

Under extreme suffering, Ms Malagala contacted the Baghdad office of Uganda Veterans Company but she was turned away.
“I told the man I found in the office that I can’t work under such conditions and he shouted at me, saying I should go on the streets and beg for money if I want to return home or I go back and work.”

She added that when she became a regular complainant at this office, she was locked in a dark room with three other women.
However, a Good Samaritan at the office, only identified as Jamilah helped her telephone the MP for Makindye West, Mr Hussein Kyanjo, who reported the matter to the floor of the House.

She added, “One of the ladies I met in the room where we were kept narrated to us how she was raped by her boss and we all started crying. She could not report to anyone.”

After Mr Kyanjo’s submission, the Speaker ordered the line ministry to investigate the matter. This, she said, frightened the company, forcing it to start arrangements to fly them back to Uganda.

Ms Malagala said she was promised a monthly payment of about $400 but when she arrived in Iraq, it was reduced to only $200 which, she says, was also never given to her.
But Ms Grace Kanyike, the managing director of Uganda Veterans Company told Daily Monitor yesterday that she has reported Ms Malagala’s case to Interpol for investigation and that if she was tortured she must be compensated.
“I am the one who paid for her visa and airtickets but she failed to work and now I am being attacked left and right,” she said.

“We don’t allow torture in my company and I have reported her case to Interpol. If it is proved that she was tortured she will be compensated.”
Mr Kyanjo, who turned emotional over Ms Malagala’s story, requested the government to black list the company and also bar it from recruiting more Ugandans for employment in Iraq.