Ugandan children were trafficked within the country, as well as to Canada, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Karamojong women and children were sold in cattle markets or by intermediaries and forced into situations of domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, herding, and begging.
Until August 2006, the terrorist rebel organization, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), abducted children and adults in northern Uganda to serve as soldiers, sex slaves, and porters.
[4] In 2023, the Organised Crime Index gave the country a score of 7.5 out of 10 for human trafficking, noting that the most common form was the movement of children from one part of Uganda to another, and that help for victims was limited.
[2] In July 2012, Uganda's female parliamentarians introduced the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons Bill in Parliament, a comprehensive draft anti-trafficking law, where it garnered unanimous support from the floor.
[2] In 2012, the Commissioner for Labor and the Parliament began investigating companies alleged to be withholding the travel documents and pay of Ugandan security guards in Iraq.
While a government report cleared three labor export agencies of fraud in February 2008, several other firms have been blacklisted for fraudulent recruitment for Iraq.
[2] The Ugandan government showed efforts to offer initial protection to children demobilized from the LRA, though it did far less to care for victims of other types of trafficking.
Police transferred 11 rescued Rwandan, Burundian, and Congolese victims of child labor trafficking to UNHCR in Mbarara for care.
The police's Child and Family Protection Unit used community meetings, school visits, and radio programs to raise awareness of trafficking.
Government efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts included a billboard campaign in Uganda's major cities discouraging "sugar daddies", arrests of men found procuring females in prostitution on disorderly conduct charges, and the prevention of a regional convention of women in prostitution from taking place in Kampala.
[2] Between January 23 to 28, 2022, the Minister of Work for Uganda visited Saudi Arabia on matters for safety of Ugandans following recent complaints in regard the companies responsible.