Safety first: Uganda introduces online platform to monitor workers
All workers registered with Uganda Gender Ministry will now be monitored online as they are at their workplace for safety purposes.
This came after Uganda Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development introduced an online system aimed at monitoring workers across the country so as to follow up on their safety and health while on duty.
The commissioner in-charge of occupational health, Francis Odong Gimoro, said introduction will help them save the time used to do manual inspection which he termed as tiresome.
Also read: Ugandan woman on the run after burying her 10-month-old son alive
“Since we are all joining the digital world, it’s very expensive for a person to travel more than 400 kilometres to Kampala to pick forms to do an assessment and then come back to pick the certificate of registration,” said Gimoro.
According to Gimoro, the platform will also help the ministry to know the location of the workplace so that they can guide users to report issues that affect their stations or become whistle-blowers.
“We will rely on workplaces to give us information to start investigations. It is the duty of workers to know their rights and inform the inspectors on what is happening at their workplace,” he added.
Also read: Museveni: African countries should be allowed to exploit fossil fuel
On the other hand, Elizabeth Kemigisha, the advocacy manager from FIDA Uganda said employees and employers still face violations, adding that the number of cases is overwhelming.
“We started an initiative with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) labour office to respond to some of the increasing numbers of violations, most of which were women and young people,” said Kemigisha.
She revealed that the country was registering more than 100 new cases monthly and they do not have the capacity to handle them in a short time.
According to Occupation Safety and Health Profiles in Kenya, no person should be held in slavery or servitude or required to perform forced labour.
Also read: Museveni: Why I prefer dark-skinned women