At least 400 Ugandan workers at a Chinese-owned construction company on Tuesday went on strike to protest alleged sexual harassment by managers and poor pay.
The angry employees staged a demonstration outside the offices of state-owned China Railway Seventh Group in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
One of the workers, Agnes Namusisi, said managers pay employees who agree to their sexual advances.
“I have not been paid for the last three months because I refused sexual advances from my boss,” Namusisi said.
The alleged mistreatment also includes long hours and supervisors beating workers who are delayed getting to their jobs, she said.
The road construction work that China Railway Seventh Group was hired to do has been suspended for three days pending the outcome of discussions between city authorities and company managers, Kampala Kawembe division town clerk Geoffrey Rwakabale said.
“We have decided that workers temporarily stop working until Thursday [today] as we engage the managers of the company,” Turwakabale said
Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago said the city would consider “blacklisting” the Chinese company if it does not address the workers’ concerns.
Calls to the offices of China Railway Seventh Group, based in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, rang unanswered yesterday.
Parent company China Railway Engineering Corp would not take questions by telephone and did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.
The World Bank canceled a 225km road construction project in western Uganda worth US$265 million in December 2015 after a review found evidence of misconduct by a Ugandan government contractor, including sexual harassment of female workers and road workers having sex with minors.
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