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RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHKM #0364/01 0470753
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
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FM AMEMBASSY KAMPALA
TO RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0233
INFO RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA

UNCLAS KAMPALA 000364 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD KTIP PHUM SOCI UG
SUBJECT: UGANDA: DOL TDA/TVPRA CHLD LABOR REPORTING 
 
REF: 09 STATE 131995 
 
¶1.  The U.S. Mission consulted with the Ministry of Gender, Labor 
and Social Development (MGLSD), the Ugandan Police Force (UPF), the 
Ugandan Human Rights Commission (UHRC), the International Labor 
Organization (ILO) and several local NGOs to compile this report in 
response to taskings in reftel. 
 
¶2. Tasking 1/TVPRA reporting: Post has reviewed the TVPRA list and 
relevant guidelines and does not believe additional goods should be 
added. 
 
¶3. Tasking 2/TDA: 
 
2A) PREVALENCE AND SECTORAL DISTRIBUTION OF EXPLOITIVE CHILD LABOR: 
 
Exploitive child labor predominantly occurred in street 
vending/begging, scrap collecting, stone quarrying, brick-making, 
road construction/repair, car washing, fishing, domestic 
nanny/housekeeper service, bar/club service work, border smuggling 
and prostitution.  In all of these areas, there were likely 
occurrences of forced labor.  According to a 2006 national 
household survey, more than 2.5 million children aged 5-14 years 
were working, of these 1.76 million were engaged in some form of 
child labor, including 1.4 million economically active children 
under the age of 12.  The survey estimated that 5% of children aged 
14-17 were engaged in some form of hazardous labor. 
 
Several publications containing statistics on exploitive and 
hazardous child labor were published in 2009.  In October, the 
MGLSD, in conjunction with ILO/IPEC, published an "Analytical Child 
Labor Baseline Survey" covering the districts in which ILO is 
currently carrying out its International Program for the 
Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) activities (Wakiso, Rakai and 
Mbale).  The local NGO "Platform for Labor Action" provided the 
Mission with a December 2009 draft report entitled "Child 
Exploitation in Kampala District".  In October, the Uganda Bureau 
of Statistics published the Child Labor Baseline Survey conducted 
in the districts of Wakiso, Rakai and Mbale.  Per reftel 
instructions, Post will forward copies of the publications to the 
Department of Labor. 
 
2B) LAWS AND REGULATIONS: 
 
Parliament passed, with significant U.S. support, a comprehensive 
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) law in 2009. Although the bill has 
been signed by President Museveni, the law has not been published 
in the government gazette and has therefore not entered into force. 
The TIP law carries a penalty of life imprisonment for "aggravated 
trafficking" of children. The law prescribes five years in prison 
for "related offenses," including the recruitment of a child below 
16 years into any form of employment for the purpose of 
exploitation. 
 
While existing laws and regulations generally provide an adequate 
framework for addressing exploitive child labor, the MGLSD and 
other stakeholders said poor implementation and enforcement of 
child labor laws remains a major impediment, and that the principle 
barrier is a lack of official resources dedicated to combating 
child labor.  The penalty for labor law violations is only $250. 
If enforced, this penalty could limit the use of children in the 
informal sector but would be less effective in deterring the use of 
child labor more lucrative enterprises such as commercial sex work. 
The TIP law's heavier penalties will assist in this regard. 
 
 2C) INSTITUTIONS AND MECHANISMS FOR ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES and 
COORDINATION 
 
The MGLSD is the lead government agency on labor issues and is 
responsible for the enforcement of all labor laws.  Within the 
MGLSD, two units have responsibility for children's issues: the 
Child Labor Unit (CLU) and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children 
(OVC) Unit.  The CLU doubled its staffing in 2009 to two full-time, 
mid-level civil servants responsible for developing the National 
Child Labor Action Plan and for working with partners such as the 
ILO to implement national information and prevention campaigns. 
The CLU also serves as a resource to MGLSD's 44 non-specialized 
labor inspectors. The OVC Unit has a larger mandate and more 
resources, including significant OVC funding from donor programs 
such as funding from the USG President's Emergency Plan for AIDS 
Relief (PEPFAR). 
 
The government has an established child labor steering committee 
that includes representatives from the Ministries of Gender and 
Labor, Education and Sports, Local Government, Agriculture, Health, 
and other stakeholder organizations such as the National 
Organization of Trade Unions, the Confederation of Uganda Trade 
Unions, the Federation of Uganda Employers, the International 
 
Rescue Committee, ILO/IPEC, and civil society. 
 
The committee last held meetings in March 2009 and January 2010. 
The MGLSD and other relevant ministries lack sufficient resources 
to regularly coordinate on child labor issues and often lack 
communication and coordination within their respective 
organizations. 
 
The Ugandan Police Force's Child and Family Protection Unit (CFPU) 
has approximately 200 officers who are trained on child and spousal 
protection issues.  These officers are posted at the national, 
regional, and district levels.  At police posts, the officer in 
charge designates a staff member or police officer to serve as the 
CFPU liaison officer and to handle complaints and cases that 
involve child and spousal protection issues.  Additionally, in 
local government offices there is usually an employee who is 
responsible for covering children and family issues. However, the 
child labor enforcement and reporting roles of both the CFPU staff 
or liaison officers and local government officials are not 
well-defined. 
 
Child and human sacrifice, which involves a trafficking element, 
has received increasing public and political attention.  A Deputy 
Police Commissioner heads a multi-agency Special Task Force for the 
Elimination of Human Sacrifice (TFEHS), which has representatives 
from the UPF, immigration, and the MGLSD.  This task force helped 
draft the TIP law. 
 
COMPLAINT MECHANISM and CASES REPORTED 
 
In coordination with the MGLSD, ILO/IPEC established a complaint 
system for child labor and trafficking and distributed posters, 
stickers and pamphlets urging citizens to help "stop modern-day 
slavery".  One poster features an overweight man tugging chained 
children to work. The handouts provide a phone number for police 
reporting and two phone numbers for NGO hot lines.  However, 
neither the MGLSD nor the head of the CFPU could provide statistics 
on the number of child labor or trafficking calls taken by the 
police or local NGOs.  The MGLSD's CLU said that the police phone 
number on the handouts is the general number for the police and 
that the operations switchboard had not informed them of any 
incoming child labor related calls.  The CFPU said they had not 
compiled any reported cases of child labor in 2009 at the national 
level. 
 
The Ugandan Human Rights Commission (UHRC) has district-level 
offices that log and investigate human rights complaints of all 
types.  The UHRC said they do not keep detailed statistics that 
disaggregate child labor complaints from other child protection 
cases, but said they logged 48 child protection cases in 2009. 
UHRC said most were cases of parental neglect or abuse.  All of the 
cases were referred to other organizations that could directly 
assist the children. 
 
The Deputy Police Commissioner who heads the TFEHS reported that 
there were several cases of trafficking of children where forced or 
hazardous labor was involved.  More information on these cases is 
provided in section 2D. 
 
FUNDING AND RESOURCES 
 
No funding information was available.  The MGLSD had only 39 
general labor inspectors and 26 occupational health and safety 
inspectors nationwide, with inspectors permanently assigned to only 
36 of Uganda's 90+ administrative districts.  This limited staffing 
and resources only allowed inspections at the largest manufacturing 
and commercial businesses and precluded inspection and awareness of 
the extent of child labor in rural areas and the informal sector. 
 
The Police's CFPU has a staff of approximately two-hundred officers 
at the national, regional and district levels.  At each police post 
there is an officer who is either a CFPU officer or a general 
officer assigned the responsibility of child and family protection 
cases (mostly parental and spousal abuse and neglect).  These 
officers receive some specialized training on family and child law 
and care, with the participation of the MGLSD. 
 
INSPECTIONS AND PROSECUTIONS 
 
MGLSD reported that no inspections specifically targeting 
exploitive or forced child were carried out and that there are no 
open cases involving exploitive or forced child labor. 
 
ANALYSIS OF COMMITMENT 
 
Both the MGLSD and the Police suffer from severe resource 
constraints.  The government has taken positive steps in the last 
several years to establish national mechanisms to protect children 
 
and other vulnerable populations.  The 2006 Child Labor Policy was 
a key step, though the government has not yet finalized its 
national action plan and resources are insufficient to enforce many 
of the country's labor laws. In 2009 the government also passed the 
TIP law, which shows a commitment to putting in place additional 
legal protections for vulnerable populations, although the 
government's failure to publish this law has prevented it from 
entering into force. In 2009 the government increased efforts to 
research and address child and human sacrifice. These efforts, 
which include campaigns urging parents to more carefully watch over 
their children, have assisted in the public sensitization to the 
rights of children. 
 
Assisting the GOU's anti-trafficking programs is a priority for the 
U.S. Mission.  From October 2008 to September 2009, a Senior Law 
Enforcement Advisor (SLEA) managed a $500,000 TIP program focused 
on training law enforcement officers.  The program successfully 
trained 178 Ugandan police, prosecutors, and immigration officers. 
The Mission also worked closely with Ugandan government and civil 
society leaders involved in the drafting of the TIP law, by funding 
a "stop modern day slavery " documentary and conducting public and 
parliamentarian information campaigns to advocate for the bill's 
passage. 
 
 2D: INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR EFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT 
 
Information regarding on government funding for efforts to combat 
child labor was unavailable.  However, the UPF's Child and Family 
Protection (CFP) Unit has a staff of about 200 for handling child 
protection cases.  The inter-agency Task Force for the Elimination 
of Human Sacrifice (TFEHS) is led by the Deputy Police 
Commissioner, and also handles cases of child trafficking and 
forced labor. The Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of the TFEHS 
has a staff of thirteen officers/employees, without a dedicated 
vehicle or sufficient communications equipment. 
 
TIP - CHILD TRAFFICKING CASES 
 
The head of the TFEHS provided information on three cases.  The UPF 
statistics office reported 16 child trafficking cases during 2009, 
but could not provide detailed information on the cases.  Because 
the TIP law is not yet in force, cases are prosecuted under other 
laws, such as obtaining money under false pretense, forgery, 
abduction, and kidnapping.  Officials said resource constraints and 
legal delays hamper investigations and that prosecutors are 
sometimes unwilling to take up child trafficking and labor cases. 
 
One of the 2009 cases involved the abduction and transport of three 
children to Kampala from Jinja, two hours to the east.  Police 
recovered the girls, returned them to their parents, and arrested 
and charged the trafficker with abduction.  The case was still 
pending at year's end.  In a second case, the police recovered 
three children in northern Uganda that had been kidnapped and were 
likely being transported to Sudan for domestic or commercial sex 
work. The traffickers were charged with abduction.  The case 
remained open at year's end.  A third case involves a woman 
arrested on suspicion of trafficking after police received a 
tip-off from the parents of a nine-year old girl, alleging that the 
woman attempted to convince the nine-year old girl to go with her 
to neighboring Kenya for work. 
 
TIP - TRAINING 
 
During 2009, the Government conducted extensive training for TIP 
investigators and first responders with U.S. support. From October 
2008 to September 2009, the U.S. Mission's Senior Law Enforcement 
Advisor managed a $500,000 TIP program that included two two-week 
criminal investigations course, one to develop TIP instructors and 
one to train TIP criminal investigators.  During the same period, 
14 one-day first responder courses were conducted.  The Ugandan 
Police Force institutionalized the one-day TIP first responder 
course into their in-service training. As of September 2009, 
approximately 150 officers had received this training from the 
CFPU.  The course includes material on women and children's rights, 
including identification of trafficking victims and prevention of 
trafficking.  The Mission also produced a TIP first responder 
pocket manual that has been provided to over 2,000 police, 
immigration, and Department of Public Prosecution personnel. The 
police also allowed an NGO to place its social workers in police 
stations to assist children and other trafficking victims. 
 
TIP - CHILD SOLDIERS 
 
Uganda was removed from the United Nations Security Council listing 
of countries that use child soldiers in 2009 following a 
verification assessment by UNICEF.  The Ugandan military continues 
to pursue the renegade Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the 
Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Sudan. 
 
Many LRA fighters captured by the Ugandan military were abducted as 
children by the LRA, and most receive amnesty from the Ugandan 
government and are reintegrated into society. There have been no 
attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) within Uganda since 
¶2006. 
 
2D) Section II: Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) 
 
There are no special units within the MGLSD, the UPF or the 
judiciary that are specifically mandated to increase awareness, 
enforce, or investigate CSEC cases.  The same resources described 
above under the child labor and trafficking sections are 
responsible for CSEC. 
 
2D) Section III: Use of Children in Illicit Activities 
 
There are no special units within the MGLSD, the UPF or the 
judiciary that are specifically mandated to increase awareness, 
enforce, or investigate children in illicit activities cases.  The 
UPF does have a general Narcotics Unit, but no part of the unit 
specifically deals with children. 
 
2E) GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON CHILD LABOR: 
 
The government published the National Child Labor Policy in 
December 2009, which contains much of the same information as the 
initial 2006 child labor policy, but was rewritten and published 
with pictures and illustrations to communicate the child labor 
policy to a broader audience.  It will be used as a source of 
guidance on child labor issues at the community level for local 
leaders, the police, employers, representative of workers and 
parents. The policy describes the roles of the different actors in 
addressing the problem of child labor, but falls short of the 
detail required in a national action plan on child labor.  A 2007 
national action plan remains in draft form. 
 
2F) SOCIAL PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE OR PREVENT CHILD LABOR: 
 
The MGLSA said the National Child Labor Policy has helped raise 
awareness of child labor. The Government incorporated child labor 
as a component in poverty reduction, development and education 
programs. The government also has encouraged other units working on 
related social issues such as persons with disabilities, 
occupational health and safety, and OVC to incorporate child labor 
considerations into their programming. Many government officials 
express a sincere intention and desire to work towards solutions, 
but cite a lack of staff, resources and funding as the major 
barrier to progress. 
 
2G) CONTINUAL PROGRESSES: 
 
Over the course of the year there was significant progress on child 
labor and child trafficking.  The passing of the TIP law and 
training for TIP investigators and first responders raised 
awareness of child trafficking crimes.  The Government's focus on 
the elimination of human sacrifice and the work of the inter-agency 
task force also increased awareness of human rights and created a 
mechanism for information exchange at the national level.  Also, 
there were slight increases in the amount of staff and resources 
available to the MGLSD, the UPF, and other agencies to address the 
problem of exploitive/forced child labor and trafficking. This 
said, overall, the resources allocated to child labor and 
trafficking issues is still low considering the likely extent of 
the occurrence of child labor, child trafficking, CSEC, the use of 
children in illicit activities, and human/child sacrifice in 
Uganda. 
LANIER