ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

A judge of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, who had been studying in the UK for a PhD in law at the time, is being prosecuted at Oxford Crown Court for charges including that of modern slavery on the grounds that she allegedly forced a woman to work as her domestic “slave”.

Prosecutors allege that Mugambe arranged for the victim, who had previously worked for Mugambe’s family in Uganda, to be brought to the UK from Uganda by conspiring with Ugandan deputy high commissioner, John Mugerwa.

Mugambe is accused of preventing the woman from holding down steady employment and forcing the woman to provide free childcare. The alleged victim said that Mugambe stopped her from working her evening job as she was instructed not to leave Mugambe’s children unsupervised; if the police were to find the children home alone, the woman would be “locked up”.

The prosecutor allege that the victim was “beholden” to Mugambe, in that she was deprived of her freedom to control her ID documents and to choose her own work. Mugambe is also charged with seeking to intimidate her alleged victim into dropping the case.

The trial is expected to last three weeks. Mugambe denies all four charges against her.