based labor recruiters and brokers also operated in Rwanda, and Nairobi-based recruiters were active in Uganda, recruiting Ugandans and resident Rwandans and Kenyans through fraudulent offers of employment in the Middle East and Asia.
A network of Ugandan women reportedly coordinated sending Ugandan women for exploitation in forced prostitution across East Asia. Some of these women transit through the UAE, India, and China—where they may also be subjected to forced prostitution— en route to destinations in East Asia. During the reporting period, the government reported the top destination countries for Ugandan trafficking victims remained Kuwait, the UAE, and Kenya, with the largest number of Ugandan victims identified in Kuwait.
The Government of Uganda does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.The government investigated 293 trafficking cases in 2014, an increase from 159 cases reported the previous reporting period. It reported 23 prosecutions and four convictions in 2014, in comparison with two convictions the previous reporting period. It maintained strong efforts to identify trafficking victims, but failed to provide them with adequate services, relying on international organizations and NGOs to provide necessary care. During the year, the Counter-Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) office—under the strong leadership of its national coordinator—made efforts to raise public awareness. Nonetheless, the government’s limited allocation of resources to the CTIP office, the Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Development (MGLSD), and its External Employment Unit (EEU) substantially endangered the welfare of victims and inhibited progress overall.

RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR UGANDA:
Significantly increase the availability of victim services by allocating resources to the MGLSD for direct care provision or provide support to NGOs that do so; designate an official focal point to oversee provision of trafficking victim protection services; increase the number of staff and funding dedicated to the CTIP office and for anti-trafficking efforts within the EEU and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA); allocate increased funding to Ugandan embassies to better assist trafficking victims abroad and consider establishment of a mission in Kuwait; establish policies and procedures for all front-line officials to identify and interview potential trafficking victims and transfer them to entities providing formal victim assistance; finalize regulations to fully implement the protection and prevention provisions of the 2009 Prevention of Trafficking in Persons (PTIP) Act; increase efforts to prosecute, convict, and punish trafficking offenders; complete amendments to labor export regulations and use existing laws to investigate and punish licensed and unlicensed labor recruiters and criminal entities responsible for knowingly sending Ugandans into forced labor or prostitution abroad; institutionalize anti-trafficking training, including victim identification techniques, for all front-line officials, including diplomatic personnel; establish a unified system of documenting and collecting data on human trafficking cases for

use by law enforcement, labor, and social welfare officials; expand the anti-trafficking public awareness campaign with a particular focus on forced labor; and accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

PROSECUTION
The government maintained strong anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. The 2009 PTIP Act prohibits all forms of trafficking, prescribing punishments of 15 years’ to life imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Amendments proposed by the EEU to the existing regulations governing the recruitment of Ugandan workers for overseas employment, intended to increase oversight of employment contracts and extend criminal liability for trafficking offenses to labor recruiters, remained pending for the third consecutive year.
The government reported 293 investigations, 23 prosecutions, and four people convicted in 2014. As the anti-trafficking act prohibits illegal adoption and child selling, these government- reported statistics may include such cases, which are not considered trafficking in persons under the UN TIP Protocol definition unless the adoption and child selling is for the purpose of forced labor or sex trafficking. In one case, the government sentenced two convicted offenders to 27 and 25 years for aggravated trafficking for selling two children into labor exploitation.The government charged a senior manager with the Ministry of Finance with aggravated trafficking for allegedly luring five girls and women to Kampala under false pretenses, with intentions of trafficking them; this case remained pending at the end of the reporting period. The government did not report any additional investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking or trafficking-related offenses, including civil service officials and members of Parliament who own labor recruitment firms and interfere in the certification of some firms, and, at times, use promises of good jobs abroad as a means to seek votes. During the reporting period, an international NGO released a report documenting cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of Somali women and girls, including trafficking victims, by Ugandan personnel in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). An African Union investigation into the allegations concluded there was evidence of the existence of such sexual exploitation and abuse by AMISOM personnel. The Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) sent an investigation team to Somalia, which identified up to five suspects for prosecution. A foreign donor, in coordination with the UPDF, trained troops on human rights, trafficking in persons, and sexual abuse issues prior to their deployment for the stabilization mission in Somalia or international peacekeeping missions elsewhere. The government’s ability to cooperate internationally on trafficking investigations—specifically those involving the trafficking of Ugandan women to the Middle East and Asia—was hampered due to lack of funding. However, the government maintained its cooperative efforts with Rwanda, Kenya and South Sudan. In May 2014, officials from the Ugandan police and INTERPOL participated in a regional operation against cross-border crime, covering Eastern and Southern Africa, during which 13 trafficking victims were rescued, including 10 men from Ghana rescued from forced labor in Uganda and three Ugandan women removed from forced labor and sexual exploitation in the UAE.
In January 2015, the National Taskforce trained 50 police officers on anti-trafficking measures and an additional 392 officials, including

police officers, magistrates, civil aviation officers, and licensed labor recruitment companies on identification and management of trafficking victims, investigation procedures of trafficking cases, and implementation of the PTIP Act. Nonetheless, some judicial officers were not aware of the PTIP Act. NGOs reported trafficking victims are often paid monetary settlements by suspects to withdraw their requests and support for trafficking prosecutions.