The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, the Most Rev. Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu has described the continued departure of Ugandan youth to the Middle East for jobs as modern slavery.

Kaziimba, who was delivering his 2025 New Year’s sermon on Wednesday during a Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral Namirembe, tasked the government to ensure the creation of jobs for Ugandans to solve the harrowing stories of gross abuse meted on migrant workers and the violation of their labor rights.

“Something should be done to save the lives of the youth taken to the Arab world to work. It hurts me, I was at the airport and saw young girls excited and ready to travel out of the country. They are abused, mistreated, beaten. In the past, we had slavery where slaves were taken by force by Arabs, but today, it is modern slavery where slaves take themselves to the Arab world,” the Archbishop noted.

He appealed to the government to devise means of solving the unemployment situation in the country and also find a system, together with the travel companies, of tracing Ugandans being mistreated in the Arab world, or even those tired of working, and ensure that they are brought back home.

“We should ensure that there are enough jobs created for our people. Resources should be shared equally… many have accumulated wealth and even do not know how to use it and other people are suffering and resort to traveling to the Arab world where they are mistreated and abused,” said Kaziimba.

The Archbishop’s statement follows several viral videos on social media of Ugandan girls crying for help following violations and abuse meted out to them by their employers, including sexual and physical abuse in the Middle East and loss of contact with travel companies that facilitated their migration.

These migrant workers have also in the past reported cases of limited freedom of movement, withholding of their wages and other benefits, and withholding of their passports and other travel documents, among others.

Due to different reports of abuse, the government in 2016 banned Ugandan women from working as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but this was relaxed a year later after the nations reached an agreement over the protection of workers.

However, despite these interventions, cases of exploitation and abuse continue.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop’s New Year’s sermon focused on the 2025 Provincial Theme; ‘Imitating God’s Goodness by Doing Good’, derived from the biblical scriptures of Galatians 6:9.

Kaziimba urged Ugandans to do good and cause transformation in the world by imitating God’s character: loving, caring, forgiving, working for the benefit of one another, and putting the needs of others ahead of their own.

“Let us do good. Security personnel should do good and save lives, the judiciary should do good, and the church should do good by preaching the gospel and saving lives…showing the grace and mercy that Jesus shared. Let us help the poor and abandoned children. This year, let us make resolutions to do good in our homes, workplaces, churches, and everywhere,” he appealed.

The Archbishop also preached against greed and theft of church land, saying that Ugandans should make resolutions of keeping only that which belongs to them and avoid land grabbing.