Ugandan women work in the Middle East even though they face abuse. They told us why

Labour migration from Uganda to the Middle East has surged since the early 2000s, with many young women travelling for employment as domestic workers. Most of these jobs are in Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. However, researchers, journalists and organisations like Human Rights Watch and the International Labour Organisation have documented the widespread abuse and exploitation of Ugandan migrant domestic workers by their employers. Cases include physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and restrictions on movement. Collectively, these accounts point to conditions that have been described as “modern slavery”. The Ugandan government has attempted to regulate recruitment agencies and negotiate bilateral agreements on working conditions. It’s had limited success. Networks of authorised and unauthorised recruitment agencies, and rows of posters in Kampala, continue to lure women with promises of well-paid domestic work in the Middle East. This is despite reports of exploitation surfacing regularly in Ugandan media. Governments and organisations should protect the rights of migrant domestic workers. But it’s equally important to recognise these women as active agents, not just victims. We are social scientists who research changing gender relations in Uganda. In a recent paper, we studied women’s decisions to migrate to the Middle East for domestic work. We wanted to understand why so many do so even though they are aware of the risks. Between 2018 and 2022, we interviewed a group of Ugandan women who had worked in the Middle East. We use the term “Middle East” broadly because our focus was on the women’s experiences rather than the differences between the countries where they worked. We were interested in why they’d migrated and how their experiences abroad affected their lives back home. Their stories revealed striking contradictions. They spoke of slavery, humiliation and confinement, but also about “becoming somebody” through migrant domestic work. This points to the reforms needed to improve working conditions abroad and expand opportunities at home. Gender shifts In countries where a majority of the population depends on the informal sector or subsistence agriculture, migrant work offers unmarried women, in particular, a rare opportunity to earn an income. In Uganda, family identity and social status are traced through the father. Marriage has traditionally been formalised through the payment of bridewealth by the man’s family to the woman’s family. Formalised marriage has become less common in recent decades, however. In the 1995 census, 64% of Ugandan women aged 15-49 described themselves as “married”, while 9% said they were “co-habiting”. By 2016, only 30% of women considered themselves married, while 30% were co-habiting. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics stopped distinguishing between marriage and cohabitation in 2022. But close to 40% of the population considers itself neither married nor cohabiting. Read more: Men still dominate Uganda’s party politics – women’s participation is mostly cosmetic During our fieldwork, we found that men are finding it increasingly difficult to pay bridewealth. As a result, many women spend their adult lives in a blend of partnerships; men go in and out of their lives while they remain with their children. Women in our study linked their decision to migrate to the Middle East to men’s failure to live up to the ideal of being providers. They saw migration as a way to gain control over resources rather than waiting for a relationship to be formalised with a man who would then provide for them. As one of our respondents stated: First find yourself some money – marriage will always be there. The women saw themselves as people who had taken their future into their own hands. They readily acknowledged the harsh realities of the work. Many spoke of losing their freedom and encountering degrading attitudes towards women and, at times, racism. Yet, as one woman put it: First get yourself the Arab experience then maybe you will become the lucky one who manages to move on to something else. They hoped migrant work would be the first step towards a new life. And for some women in our study it did happen. They got better jobs in other countries. Many however, did not. They returned several times to the Middle East before eventually settling down in Uganda. Some returned home with savings, which they couldn’t do on a Ugandan wage. Earnings in the Middle East vary widely, so getting precise amounts proved difficult. And at home, they faced competing demands, like sharing resources with relatives and trying to build a permanent home of their own. Read more: What does a house mean to you? We asked some women who head households in South Africa Even though many women never marry, motherhood remains a powerful social expectation. One in three Ugandan households are headed by women, according to the 2022 demographic survey. We found that even more women are actually heads of households even if a man is around some of the time. Ugandans may say that a woman is “fathering a home” in the sense that she is building a house for herself and her children, making decisions and controlling resources. Not everybody succeeds in doing so, even after years in the Middle East. But some do. And the hope is there. Power dynamics of migration Recruitment agencies and other intermediaries profit from those hopes. The women’s “Arab bosses” may make possible the lives they aspire to build, while sustaining exploitative and oppressive labour relationships. These experiences are shaped by wider global inequalities. European countries are part of this unequal system. They restrict opportunities for low-wage migrants through tightening immigration policies. In doing so, they reinforce inequalities in who can move, where they can work and under what conditions. The women in our study didn’t describe themselves as trying to challenge global inequalities or transform existing power structures. Rather, they sought greater control over resources and decision-making within their families and communities. Their main motivation was to provide for their families. Yet they are also reshaping power and gender relations in Uganda and beyond. Hanne O. Mogensen receives funding from FFU (The Consultative Research Committee for Development Research) in Denmark.Julaina A. Obika does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.