The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is calling for concerted efforts to promote access to decent work for refugees.
Through its Refugees in East Africa Boosting Urban Innovations for Livelihood Development project- REBUiLD, the IRC has developed a policy brief intended to highlight the need for access to decent work for Urban refugees.
In Uganda, a refugee is entitled to humanitarian aid when in a settlement and is required to fend for themselves the moment they opt to leave the settlements for Urban centers.
According to the UN Habitat 80 percent of refugees and internally displaced persons are drawn to cities worldwide rather than living in camps or settlement areas.
However, Priscilla Dembetembe, the Program Directo of REBUiLD says that Urban refugees still face a number of challenges such as the lengthy bureaucratic process of obtaining a work permit, denial of employment by potential employers on grounds of being refugees, language barrier, and attitude by the host communities and the refugees towards each other.
According to the policy brief, launched on Tuesday at Mestil Hotel in Kampala, decent work stands on four pillars, employment creation and enterprise development, social protection, standards and rights at work, governance, and social dialogue.
Johnstone Kotut, the Public Engagement and Advocacy Coordinator at IRC says that the lengthy bureaucratic process of getting a work permit tempts several refugees to operate illegally which exposes them to conflict with the law. He says that some refugees take as many as two years before they can get work permits.
Kotut also adds that there is still ignorance among the host communities about the rights of refugees in Urban centers. He says several employers in the host communities are unaware that they can employ refugees for as long as they have a work permit and hence operate legally in the country. But also, a number of those who employ urban refugees in the private sector tend to exploit them, giving them lower remuneration compared to nationals for the same work and output, and denying them other benefits of employment.
He says that as IRC they are involving potential employers on such issues and asked the government to do the same. He further asked Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA to help urban refugees acquire working space in the informal sector spaces like markets.
Uganda is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention which provides for the right to seek employment or engage in other income-generating activities. Similarly, the country subscribes to the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) which promotes self-reliance for refugees and access to decent work. Saed Ahmad Musa Alim, the chairman of the United Somali Community says that the barriers to acquiring a work permit are a big blockage to their efforts to promote the livelihood of the Urban refugees.
He says often they equip urban refugees with basic employable skills but fail to put them to use for failure to acquire work permits, and others due to failure to get recommendations from the local LCs who often demand financial motivation to do the work.
Apart from the work permits, refugees also report other challenges such as delays in the issuance of travel documents, delays in approval of certificates from their home countries, delays in getting certification for skills acquired, and the lack of recognition for their refugee card by some service providers, both government and private.
Peggy Ayesiga, from the Refugee Management unit of the Office of the Prime Miniter-OPM, acknowledged the delays in processing work permits and other crucial documents for refugees. She says that the number of applicants is often big and many times, the office is dealing with a backlog hence the delay.
Ayesiga also says that currently, they are streamlining documentation for refugees to ensure that what the OPM has is in harmony with what exists in the Immigration office register. She says there has been an overlap of registers at the two offices which created a mix of asylum seekers and refugees on one side and tourists and students on the other. This has been true with especially the Somali nationals, she says.
Francis Kabuye from the Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises says that entrepreneurs need to be sensitized and motivated to employ urban refugees.
Jean Byamugisha, the Chairperson of the Uganda Hotel Owners Association highlighted the efforts the private sector has embraced to employ refugees. She says, working with the International Labor Organization, they have trained over 100 refugees to work in the hostility industry and over 70 percent of these have been employed already.
Byamugisha says they are set to train another 200 refugees. She however said that refugees too need to be trained to adopt a positive attitude towards work and the host communities. She says a number of these refugees are uncontrollable and often speak to supervisors with arrogance telling them of how they are the reason for their employment.
There are over 4.5 million refugees in the IGAD Community with Uganda being the highest single host country with over 1.5 million refugees. Kampala hosts over 150,000 refugees.
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