Over 40 days ago, the media was awash with videos of a female Ugandan stuck in one of the hospitals in Madinah, Saudi Arabia.
Going by the video clips, the visibly distressed female, trying to narrate her ordeal in Luganda, could not piece up the entire story of how she got hospitalised. All she cried for, was to be repatriated back to Uganda. The video made rounds on Christmas Day until the victims’ parents were identified.
On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, Prossy Nambalirwa, 30, a resident of Lwembogo village in Sembabule district, successfully returned to Uganda courtesy of President Yoweri Museveni, through the State House Diaspora Unit.
She was received at Entebbe International Airport VIP lounge by her parents, Livingstone Nsereko and Margaret Namwanje plus her 3 children. It was a sombre mood as all her relatives struggled to hold back tears.
Although she was carried in a wheelchair, Nambalirwa could randomly jump off, to hug her parents, children and boyfriend. Whichever statement she uttered, was accompanied with tears. She was visibly confused and distressed, but at the same time happy to have reunited with her family. “All I wanted was to see my children again, my parents and husband,” she wailed.
Mohammed Bagonza, the senior presidential advisor on the diaspora and also the head of the diaspora unit, said upon watching the widely circulated video of Nambalirwa’s predicament, he ordered immediate intervention and facilitated her return.
“The President’s concern is not only with Nambalirwa, but all the Ugandans who are working from other countries,” Bagonza said.
He further intimated that the State House Diaspora Unit have developed a data management system to keep track of Ugandans in the diaspora.
“This system is only aimed at ensuring that our citizens are safe wherever they are, and will only help in marketing the professional services that are offered by Ugandans. All professions shall be included in the system that we are developing, from where employers can search for Ugandan professionals and not just the domestic workers,” Bagonza said.
Management system
Gender ministry spokesperson Joshua Kyalimpa said the Government has already developed the External Employment Management Information System (EEMIS) which records all Ugandans who go to work abroad, especially those who go through the right channels.
“Countries with which Uganda has a bilateral labour agreement such as Saudi Arabia, run a similar system,” Kyalimpa remarked.
He further stated that a team from Saudi Arabia was in Uganda recently to find a way of integrating the two systems with a view that each Ugandan who works in Saudi Arabia can be recorded for traceability.
“There has been some progress though we have mainly been exporting domestic workers. The idea of the ministry is to expand, such that we can also externalise people in the professional sectors,” Kyalimpa explained.
Nambalirwa narrates
Nambalirwa recalls how she managed to leave Uganda for employment in Saudi Arabia: “It was May 23, 2023, when some young women and I left Uganda through Entebbe Airport and went to seek better opportunities. I had agreed with my husband that we had to look for better avenues of sustaining our three children. So, I took our children to my parents in the village, got some money from my father and paid a company which took me abroad,” she recalls.
The tormented returnee further narrated how she got employed as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, but got overwhelmed with work, with very minimal time to rest. Nambalirwa, however, could not make co-ordinated statements on how she got out of the home from where she was working and ended up in the hospital.
Rescue
After the viral video showed a Ugandan hospitalised in Madinah, Faridah Nanyunja, Uganda’s honorary consular assistant in Jeddah, traced Nambalirwa.
“We went up to five hospitals until we managed to locate her,” Nanyunja briefly narrates.
The victimised Ugandan was later transferred to the consulate from where she has been receiving treatment until her return on Wednesday.
Mawogola South Member of Parliament Gorreth Namugga, who traced for the relatives of Nambalirwa, called for more funding towards Uganda’s foreign embassies and missions abroad to manage such occurrences.
She acknowledged that there is no proper legislation about the externalisation of labour. The legislator urged the Government to fast-track the Bill on labour externalisation as well as enhance the database of migrant workers to help in monitoring and tracing those who might encounter threats while on duty, especially in the Arabian Gulf.
The State House team pledged to provide medical care to Nambalirwa until she fully recovers as well as finding an alternative source of income for her.