Juliet Kabuhgo remembers clearly when she met the father of her child. She was 17 years old.
“He called me several days in a row and asked me to meet him down at the market. One day I went down there and met him. He told me he loved me, but I didn’t understand because we had never met. After two weeks, he started sending me money. First 20,000 shillings, then 30,000 shillings (55 Danish kroner). Then he demanded that we have sex. I tried to refuse him, but he insisted,” she says.
Juliet Kabuhgo, who is 22 years old today, is one of 31 girls and women who say that from 2018 to 2022, they were impregnated and then abandoned by employees at the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project, two hydropower plants where Danish energy company Frontier Energy is the majority shareholder.
Danwatch’s partner, the television station NTV Uganda, visited the village of Kyarumba at the foot of the tree-covered slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains and interviewed seven of the affected girls and women, as well as a number of other sources in the local area.
The women and girls talk about being persuaded and pressured into sex by men under contract with the Sri Lankan company VS Hydro, which built the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project for Frontier Energy, and how they struggle to support themselves and their children today.
The fathers who came to Kyarumba from other parts of Uganda and Sri Lanka have all left the area again and the mothers are not able to get in touch with them.
“When I told him I was pregnant, he refused to believe it. Instead, he demanded that we have sex again,” says Juliet Kabuhgo. “I agreed because otherwise I was afraid he wouldn’t take responsibility for the baby. Afterwards, I tried to call him several times, but he just told me that it wasn’t his child and that I should have an abortion,” she says.
Kyarumba is located in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains, located in the border area between Uganda and DR Congo. Video: Joel Kaguta / NTV Uganda
According to Ivan Bwambale, the politically elected chairman of the Kyarumba sub-county council, an area in western Uganda with just over 25,000 inhabitants, fourteen of the girls were under the age of 18 when they became pregnant.
This is despite the fact that it is illegal in Uganda to have sex with anyone under the age of 18.
“Some of the girls were as young as 15-16 years old, and there are also four who have been diagnosed with HIV,” he says. “It’s a very unfortunate situation and we hope that these single mothers will soon get some help,” he says.
Ivan Bwambale’s information is confirmed by several local sources that NTV Uganda has spoken to.
The Danish company behind the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project, Frontier Energy, did not wish to participate in an oral interview with Danwatch. However, the company writes in an email response that they are aware of the case and are investigating it further.
“This is a matter we take very seriously,” writes Anders Hauch, Investment Director at Frontier Energy.
However, he declines to go into details.
“Unfortunately, out of consideration for the group of people who have contacted us, we cannot comment publicly on the specific aspects of this case. This would be unethical and contrary to the guidelines we try to comply with in this area,” Anders Hauch writes.
It started well, Ivan Bwambale remembers.
In 2017, when Frontier Energy began the construction of the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project, the locals welcomed the construction. Kyarumba is located in a remote, inaccessible mountainous terrain and does not attract a lot of major Western investment.
“There was a lot of activity in the area. We had high expectations that the local economy would take off,” says Ivan Bwambale.
But in the summer of 2021, the city council chairman started receiving inquiries from concerned parents. They told us that employees at the hydropower plants had impregnated their daughters and now didn’t want to acknowledge the children.
“I investigated the matter further and made a report describing the situation and what the individual girls had told me. I submitted it to Frontier Energy, but we never heard from them,” says Ivan Bwambale.
Danwatch and NTV Uganda have seen the report that the council chairman submitted to Frontier Energy in July 2021. Danwatch has also been in contact with the local employee who received it. This person no longer works for Frontier Energy and does not wish to be named.
“I passed it on in the system, but then nothing more happened. I’m sorry about that, because the girls should have been helped,” the former employee tells Danwatch.
Frontier Energy confirms today that they received an inquiry about the matter in 2021 without acting on it.
“The request was received by a local employee in the project company, who correctly forwarded it to his superior, who unfortunately never forwarded it to the management. We will try to find out why and see if we need to adjust our procedure to minimise the risk of this happening again. We can only regret that the matter was not brought forward at the time,” writes Investment Director Anders Hauch in an email to Danwatch.
The missed inquiry was realised when Frontier Energy was contacted again about the matter in May 2023 – this time not from Ivan Bwambale.
“In accordance with our procedures for handling such inquiries, our employees asked the group to collectively or individually contact us verbally or in writing so that we could assess the case and, if necessary, contact the contractor responsible for the construction of the facility,” Anders Hauch writes and continues:
“To date, we have not received any inquiries. Notwithstanding this, however, as part of our ongoing community engagement, we have been in dialogue with various stakeholders on the topic,” he writes.
One of Jane Mbambu’s daughters. Video: Joel Kaguta / NTV Uganda
One of the concerned parents who approached council chairman Ivan Bwambale in the summer of 2021 was Jane Mbambu.
Two of her daughters have had children with employees of the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project. They were 17 and 19 years old, respectively, when they got pregnant. Both were still in school.
Without fathers to provide for her daughters and their children, Jane Mbambu has herself had to step in and help. But it’s hard to afford it all.
“I take jobs in other people’s farms to be able to support them all. The fathers have left, so it has been me who has had to pay for food and doctor’s visits,” she says.
Jovia Biira tells a similar story.
She became pregnant and infected with HIV when she had sex with a hydropower plant employee three years ago – at the age of 24. He approached her one day at the local market where she was selling tomatoes. He offered her money to be with him, and when she got pregnant, he cut all contact and disappeared.
Today, Jovia Biira has left Kyarumba. Both her parents are dead, but she had hoped that her six brothers would help her take care of the baby.
“They have all rejected me. They don’t want to have a child in their home that they don’t know the father of,” says Jovia Biira.
The stories from Kyarumba do not surprise Kristine Mærkedahl Jensen, International Manager at Sex & Samfund.
“We know that early and unwanted pregnancies in countries like Uganda often trap girls and women in a vicious socio-economic spiral. The pregnancies become a burden they have to carry for the rest of their lives. Especially because single parenthood is still perceived as a huge shame in Uganda. Girls and women find it harder to afford food, education and healthcare, both for themselves and their children,” she says.
According to several human rights and business experts interviewed by Danwatch, the case of the 31 girls and women in Kyarumba is symptomatic of large infrastructure projects in Africa.
It is well known that large influxes of foreign – typically male – labour into small communities can lead to sexual violations, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, explains Andrea Shemberg, an American-Italian human rights lawyer.
“Because these are sensitive issues – in some cultures more than others – they are not always brought to light and addressed. But all companies undertaking large infrastructure projects like this need to be aware of the risk of these types of human rights abuses. It has to be top of mind ,” says Andrea Shemberg.
According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Frontier Energy cannot excuse itself on the grounds that the men were employed by the subcontractor VS Hydro – and not Frontier Energy itself.
“All companies have a responsibility to respect human rights throughout their value chain. This means that they are also responsible for the behaviour of their subcontractors,” says Andrea Shemberg.
Elin Wrzoncki, Head of Human Rights and Business at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, confirms that companies must take responsibility for the type of problems described by the sources in Kyarumba:
“Social issues, including impacts on the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls, related to the influx of migrant labour are certainly within the scope of a company’s responsibility,” she says.
In their email response to Danwatch, Frontier Energy acknowledges that as the majority shareholder of the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project, they have a responsibility to the local population in Kyarumba.
The company also explains that they took a number of measures during the construction of the hydropower plants to prevent what the 31 single mothers have been subjected to.
Investment Director Anders Hauch writes in an email that Frontier Energy organised awareness campaigns about HIV and AIDS and the use of contraception for both the local community and employees of the companies that were responsible for the construction. The company also ensured that their contractors provided free condoms for their employees.
“However, it should be noted that our work with awareness campaigns and community dialogue was hampered by the very restrictive COVID-19 measures in Uganda for most of 2020 and 2021,” he writes.
The two hydropower plants that make up the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project are currently in operation and supply power to the national grid in Uganda.
Jessica Kabuhgo hopes that Frontier Energy will help her get a job. She was 19 when she was impregnated by an employee at the Nyamagasani Hydro Power Project.
“He had a lot of money and would give me between 20 and 50,000 shillings. But after I got pregnant, I could no longer get in touch with him. He has left town and his phone number no longer works,” she says.
Today, she lives at home with her parents, who help her take care of her daughter.
“My message to the company is that they make sure that we women get a job or some education so that we have a chance to create our own lives,” she says.
Frontier Energy did not wish to comment on Jessica Kabuhgo’s proposal. The company reiterates that they “cannot comment on the specific case out of consideration for those who have contacted them”.
Meanwhile, city council chairman Ivan Bwambale is trying to help the single mothers and their families in the best possible way. Through the local bishop, he has recently donated a herd of piglets.
“We need help to keep the mothers out of trouble now that there are no fathers to take care of them,” he says.
Frontier Energy’s subcontractor VS Hydro has not responded to Danwatch’s inquiries
Oscar Rothstein