Dubai — UGANDA plans to export 50,000 security guards to the United Arab Emirates in the coming year, the labour minister has said.

Speaking to Sunday Vision in Dubai on a three-day state visit, labour state minister Emmanuel Otaala said his team had met three security recruitment agencies. He also held discussions with his counterpart, Saqr Saeed Ghobash, in a bid to improve relations between the two countries.

Currently, about 1,000 Ugandans are working as security guards for various groups in the United Arab Emirates. The Ugandan minister visited the accommodation facilities of First Security Group in Dubai, where about 300 Ugandan guards are working.

The Gulf country had recently come under criticism from international human rights organisations for allegedly mistreating foreign workers, especially in the booming construction industry. But Otaala said that in comparison with other countries where Ugandan guards are employed, the welfare and working conditions in the United Arab Emirates were far better.

The minister explained that his visit was a fact-finding mission, aimed at exploring possibilities where Ugandans could compete with other labour exporting countries like India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya and Pakistan.

He said they were also exploring possibilities for other professions such as doctors, waiters, accountants, salesmen in supermarkets, teachers and journalists. Besides the United Arab Emirates, he said, Uganda is also supplying security guards to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria in the Middle East.

"We have seen a lot of potential in the Middle East. Our diplomatic missions have been asked to study the requirements for us to penetrate the manpower market in this region."

He added that Uganda would consider organising Arabic courses if language was an obstacle. In the past, Ugandans would mainly migrate to Europe and the US in search of jobs, known as kyeyo. With the economic crisis in the western world and increased restrictions on migration, analysts argue, the Middle East has become more attractive.

Milton Turyasima of the labour ministry, who accompanied the minister, said the Government wants to regulate manpower supply to the Middle East so that private dealers do not turn it into human trafficking. "We have reservations about jobs like housemaids. A maid's rights can easily be abused. As a government, we are not licensing anyone to export maids to any foreign country," he noted.

He also said they were looking at establishing a framework to assist several Ugandan women who came to the United Arab Emirates in search of jobs, only to become victims of human traffickers. A US State Department report for 2009 says the United Arab Emirates has about 10,000 victims of human trafficking.