Girls trafficked from Rwanda, sexually abused in Uganda

It was during Pentecostal fellowship at Kimisagara, Kigali in Rwanda, that their bonding became strong. Miriam Furaha’s attachment to Annet Umutoni developed into trust in just a month.
In November 2011, Furaha and Umutoni had become so close that they were more like sisters.
Umutoni, 30, was a lovely person, very social and had no trouble interacting with members of Furaha’s house, and the neighbours. She always told them she was on holiday looking after her baby.
After her holiday, she was to go back to Kampala, Uganda, where she was married.
Parents and their children sat quietly to listen to Umutoni narrate stories about the good things in the city, Kampala. She painted a picture of a place full of opportunities.
The children were amazed by prospects across the border. Umutoni confirmed to them that she even had people who would get them jobs in mega supermarkets, where they would earn a good income.
Umutoni spent a week in the company of her sister in faith. Although Furaha had helped Umutoni, her purse was thinning so she wanted the guest to move on. They both agreed that she (Umutoni) would move in three-day’s time.
Before the elapse of the three days, Umutoni packed her property, put her baby on the back and left.
“When I went back home, I didn’t find anyone. I called my daughter. She wasn’t in the house. I continued to call her thinking she was in the neighbourhood. My neighbour came saying her daughter was also missing,” Furaha says.
They searched around in vain. Their daughters were teenagers. They couldn’t take chances. They reported to Rwanda Police, which used its machinery. It was fruitless.
Their investigations focused on Umutoni, who had also disappeared.
After a few days, Furaha’s son got a mobile phone contact of Umutoni, which had been noted down by his sister.
He handed it over to the mother who passed it on to police.
Investigations into the phone records indicated that Umutoni was already in Kampala, Uganda.
Kigali’s jurisdiction couldn’t go beyond their borders. International Police was contacted and it engaged the Uganda Police Force.
In Uganda, the case was handed over to the then Rapid Response Unit.
On December 19, 2011, Detective Sergeant Nathan Mugume was tasked to find Umutoni to establish if she was the one with the missing girls.
With telephone printouts, tracing Umutoni was an easy task. Umutoni was tracked by the police. A female relative of the missing girls, who lives in Kampala, used to call her.
Umutoni’s host in Rwanda (Furaha) had also travelled to Kampala to follow up the case.
“I guided her on what to tell Umutoni and she agreed to meet with her at Bweyogerere on Jinja Road. We set off to the scene where she was to meet our source,” D/Sgt Mugume wrote in his statement.
Their agent and Umutoni met at a fuel station at Kireka, Wakiso District. The police officers were tracking the suspect. After confirming that the person they were looking for was the one meeting their “bait”, they surrounded them and arrested Umutoni.

“She first denied being Annet but she said she knew who Annet Umutoni was and promised to take police officers where she was. But the police insisted they first go to the RRU offices before she takes them to another direction,” the girls’ relative narrates the incident after the arrest.
Neither the police officers nor their bait had ever seen the person they were looking for. They just transported the person whom they had met to RRU offices.
At RRU offices, the person they had detained was identified by the mother of one of the two missing girls as Umutoni. She broke down and admitted that she was Annet Umutoni and that she was aware of the girls’ whereabouts.
On December 20, 2011, Umutoni took the detectives where the girls had been kept.
Their first destination was in a home of Diana Batamuliza in Mbuya, just a stone throw away from RRU offices, where they found the 14-year-old girl busy with house chores. She was now a maid.
They moved on to Umutoni’s home and found another girl also doing house help duties.
All the girls were taken to RRU offices to meet their relatives.
With the two girls recovered, the detectives were able to understand how the girls made it from Kigali to Kampala, the motive of their travel and who was behind it.
Mugume talked to the younger girl first. She said on November 4, 2011, they set off for Uganda with Umutoni and her baby but when they reached Rwentobo in Ntungamo District, Umutoni left her with the baby under the guardianship of a boda boda motorcyclist for three days.
At night, the boda boda cyclist raped her. When Umutoni returned with the older girl, the younger girl narrated her ordeal to her sister.
Later, Umutoni moved the girls to the home of the boda boda cyclist’s father from where they later set off to Kampala.
In Kampala, the younger girl told police she was taken to Umutoni’s home where she worked as a maid without pay.
It is from this home that police officers rescued her.
Mugume turned to the older girl to get her side of the story.
The older girl told the detective they first met Umutoni at their home in Rwanda. Umutoni had picked her saying she had already transported her friend to Uganda.
“She promised us jobs in a supermarket in Kampala where they were to pay us Shs100,000 a month and later increase the pay when they have stabilised,” the older girl told the detective.
They spent a night at Kimironko in Kigali city and travelled the next day with motor cycles to Rwentobo, where they met her younger sister. They set off to Kampala.
They made a stopover at one home in Kampala before they were taken to Umutoni’s home where they spent a week.
“I was taken to another home of a one Jennifer [Kyobutungi] where Annet [Umutoni] introduced me as her younger sister. I couldn’t understand the language they were speaking. But the man in the home started sexually harassing me and it went on for a week,” the older girl said.
She said she couldn’t defend herself because the man, whom she only identified as Job, kept a pistol and police uniforms near her bedroom.