Madam steals your salary, cellphone companies steal your credit...

Many people tend to get oppressed because of their ignorance. And we tend to blame them for “encouraging” the oppressors because of their own actions, or non-action. The case of many a house-girl is a good example.

She is usually picked up from the village during Christmas holidays when “Madam” kindly offers to employ her since she has dropped out of school due to lack of fees

Seeing her off, her mother advises her to be well behaved and not to misuse the chance she has been given. Mama further advises Madam to keep the girl’s salary for her so that she does not excitedly waste the money in town. And off to the city they go, on her first ride in a private car.

Work goes on for one year until Christmas season. Girl wants to go and visit her home, and of course show off the new class acquired over 12 months of city diet, different hand-me-down clothes and watching television. She asks for her accumulated salary.

Madam at first pretends not to have heard. On the eve of departure day, Girl asks for her money again. She is asked if she is a thief. What about all the clothes she has been given? What about the medical bills paid when she fell sick? And hey, what about the hair salon bills paid to style her up the day she was taken to attend the neighbour’s cousin’s nephew’s wedding?

After the deductions, Girl is given the equivalent of one month’s salary. Before departing for the village, her luggage is harshly inspected to ensure she takes nothing that is not hers. Returning to the city a week later, she seeks different employment either in a bar, or becomes self-employed in the illicit pleasure market.

You may not be much smarter than this girl if you have a mobile phone or a bank account in Uganda. You load airtime on your phone and every night before you retire, you ensure there is enough credit in case you need to make an emergency call.

Finally the emergency comes, maybe in the form of thugs shaking your gate. You try to call the local police OC, and a disembodied voice says you do not have sufficient credit to complete this transaction…

What has happened is that your credit was taken away to pay for some silly update of ring-tones that you never requested. You trustingly kept your credit with the phone company. They used it for your “benefit” getting you a ring-tone that you hate.

Another way you become a house girl from the village is by holding a bank account in Uganda. Whether you withdraw money or not, your balance keeps reducing due to services rendered to you without your knowledge.

And these days, if you have a loan, the bank will change the interest — of course upwards — without asking you. So as you call the exploited house-girls ignorant, you may not be very different from them.

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com