A Ugandan UN judge jailed in the UK for forcing a Ugandan woman to work as slave
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A senior judge who previously worked for the United Nations and Uganda’s High Court has been sentenced to six years and four months in prison for enslaving a young Ugandan woman as a maid in the United Kingdom. The Oxford Crown Court ruled that Lydia Mugambe had abused her authority in a particularly severe manner, exploiting the young woman.
According to Reuters, Lydia Mugambe, a judge of Uganda’s High Court since 2013, was appointed in 2023 to be a judge for the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which performs functions of previous tribunals relating to war crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Conviction under the Modern Slavery Act Prosecutors revealed that Mugambe deceived the young Ugandan woman into moving to the UK in 2022, promising work as a maid and childcare provider—without any pay while Mugambe pursued her PhD at the University of Oxford.
She was also found guilty of conspiring with John Leonard Mugerwa, then Uganda’s deputy high commissioner in London, to secure the victim’s entry into the UK by falsifying information on her visa application. Following a trial, Mugambe was convicted in March on four charges, including conspiring to breach UK immigration law, facilitating travel for exploitation, forcing an individual into labor, and conspiring to intimidate a witness.
As reported by Reuters, “You have shown absolutely no remorse for your conduct. Instead, you continue, wholly unjustifiably I am afraid, to depict yourself as the victim,” Foxton said. “As a qualified lawyer, a Ugandan High Court judge and a United Nations Criminal Tribunal judge, Lydia Mugambe understood the rule of law and chose to overlook it”, Lynette Woodrow, national lead for modern slavery at the Crown Prosecution Service, said in a statement.
According to the Guardian, Judge Foxton, while sentencing Mugambe at Oxford crown court on Friday, said it was a “very sad case”, outlining Mugambe’s legal accomplishments including work concerning the protection of human rights. Foxton said the defendant “showed absolutely no remorse” for her conduct and that she had looked to “forcibly blame” the victim for what happened.
Because of Mugambe’s powerful status in Uganda, the victim said she “can’t go back” to her country and was afraid she might never see her mother again.
This is a landmark case in the area of the protection of human rights and the rule of law, the fight against transnational slavery and forced labour and the fight against the abuse of power.
Berinyuy Cajetan is the founder and publisher of Human Rights and Legal Research Centre (HRLRC) since 2017. He has intensive experience in strategic communications for Civil Society Organizations, campaign and advocacy, and social issues. He has an intensive experiencing in human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting.
Berinyuy Cajetan is the founder and publisher of Human Rights and Legal Research Centre (HRLRC) since 2017. He has intensive experience in strategic communications for Civil Society Organizations, campaign and advocacy, and social issues. He has an intensive experiencing in human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting.
