UGANDA: DOL TDA/TVPRA CHLD LABOR REPORTING

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