For the past fortnight, social media has been washed with a video of a Ugandan girl, Joan Agnes Kyotalimye, crying for help after allegedly being locked inside a Saudi Arabian hospital where she was exported to serve as a domestic work.
“No one has visited me since I was brought here not even the company that allocated me in the home where I was working, yet the boss told me that she had handed me back to them,” Kyotalimye said in the trending video.
Her cries have attracted massive condemnation of labour exporters something that has forced them to clear the air on Kyotalimye’s fate. Through their umbrella body known as Uganda Association of External Recruiters Agencies (UAERA), labour exporters have explained that Kyotalimye was isolated in a Saudi Arabian hospital because she is undergoing treatment, and will soon will return to the country.
Ibrahim Bogere, the UEARA vice chairperson, said that whereas Kyotalimye was subjected to medical check-ups before boarding to Saudi Arabia, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis after reaching there. For this reason, Bogere said Kyotalimye needed urgent treatment for the TB infection traces found in her body.
“As a requirement, all migrant workers traveling to Saudi Arabia, undergo medieval tests to ascertain their health conditions before they are given visas, and Kyotalimye was subjected to the same and passed, however on arrival a confirmatory test were made and she was found medically unfit, hence she was admitted,” Bogere said.
According to Bogere, she was put in isolation, due to the nature of her infection, adding that she will be brought back in the country as soon as her condition improves. Records show Kyotalimye with passport number A00639888, was externalised by Alasker company to Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker on September 24, 2022, after being cleared by the ministry of labour on 12th of the same month.
Abdul Wahab Muyomba, the managing director of Alasker internationals company, has assured that Kyotalimye’s relatives that she is in a stable condition basing on the constant communication he has had with her.
“I have worked with different agencies including the presidents’ office where I even talked to her on a video call and she assured us that she is still alive in hospital, unlike the lies that have been being spread on social media that her organs have been harvested,” he said.
However, Moses Mubiru, Kyotalimye’s uncle, said that there are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding her conditions, and they must be answered. According to Mubiru Kyotalimye came across a notice indicating that she was going to be operated, and this is still not clear.
“Kyotalimye told me that she landed on a paper showing that she was going to be operated. My question is for a TB patient what calls for the operation?” Mubiru asked
Mubiru added that though the companies claim that the girl was found with TB, no one in their family members has looked at the medical records. Mubiru said the TB illness is all hearsay to them. “We have also lost communication with her, and we don’t know whether she is dead or alive.”
