For years, rumors have swirled about the excesses and hidden dangers lurking beneath Dubai’s glitzy reputation. But on September 15, 2025, a BBC World Service investigation tore the lid off one of the city’s darkest secrets: a sprawling sex trafficking network exploiting vulnerable Ugandan women, masterminded by a man known as Charles “Abbey” Mwesigwa. The revelations, detailed in a powerful documentary and the World of Secrets podcast, have sent shockwaves through Uganda and beyond, exposing not only the horrors endured by the victims but also the systemic failures that allow such abuse to flourish.
At the center of the investigation is Mwesigwa, a former London bus driver, whom the BBC tracked to the upscale Jumeirah Village Circle neighborhood in Dubai. Survivors and witnesses describe a chilling pattern: young Ugandan women, desperate for work, are lured by promises of legitimate jobs in supermarkets or hotels. Upon arrival, the reality is starkly different. Instead of steady employment, they find themselves ensnared in a web of coercion, violence, and mounting debts—forced into sex work to pay off supposed fees for airfare, visas, accommodation, and food. The initial debt, often over £2,000, can double within weeks, trapping the women in a cycle with seemingly no escape.
One survivor, identified as Mia, told the BBC, “Money for air tickets, for your visa, for where you’re sleeping, food. That means you have to work hard, hard, hard, pleading for men to come and sleep with you.” Her testimony echoes the accounts of many others who found themselves in similar predicaments, their hopes for a better life dashed by the grim reality of exploitation.
The BBC’s undercover reporting and open-source intelligence journalism painted a harrowing picture of life inside Mwesigwa’s network. According to Troy, a former associate who ultimately quit after trying to help the women escape, “If the girls said ‘I’m not ready to provide sex’, he would keep them inside the room until they agreed. Their only option was to be with Abbey.” Troy went further, accusing Mwesigwa of “selling humans for money” and running a team of recruiters in Uganda who targeted the most vulnerable.
The abuse didn’t stop at forced sex work. Victims described being compelled to perform degrading and violent “fetish” acts, often at the request of wealthy foreign clients, including Europeans. Lexi, another survivor, recounted being offered thousands to be urinated on, beaten, or even forced to eat feces. She said some clients would pay up to AED 15,000 (£3,000) for such humiliating acts. The internet term “Dubai Porta Potty,” which went viral in 2022 with over 450 million views on TikTok, refers to these types of degrading encounters—highlighting how online rumors sometimes mask a brutal reality.
The BBC’s investigation also uncovered a tragic pattern of violence and death. In May 2022, 23-year-old Monic Karungi, known online as Mona Kizz, fell from a high-rise apartment in Dubai. Just a year earlier, Kayla Birungi, another young Ugandan woman, died in similar circumstances in the same Al Barsha neighborhood. Dubai authorities ruled both deaths as suicides or linked them to drugs and alcohol, but their families fiercely contest these findings. In Kayla’s case, laboratory tests verified by the BBC showed no alcohol or drugs in her system, despite police claims to the contrary. Monic’s family, meanwhile, said they never received her remains and suspect she was buried in an unmarked grave in Al Qusais Cemetery, known locally as “The Unknown.”
Michael, a relative of Monic, received desperate voice notes from her before her death, describing debts of more than $27,000 and her desperate hope of escaping Mwesigwa’s network. “We are all looking at Monic’s death,” he told the BBC. “But who is there for the girls still alive? They’re still there. Still suffering.” Mia recalled how Monic had finally secured a legitimate job and was planning her escape, but days later she was dead. The similarities between the two cases—and the lack of thorough investigation by Dubai police—have only intensified suspicions of foul play.
The BBC contacted the Al Barsha Police Station for comment and to review the case files for both women, but received no response. Survivors also reported being dismissed by local police when they sought help, reinforcing a sense of helplessness and impunity for the traffickers.
For his part, Mwesigwa denies all allegations. In a statement to the BBC, he insisted, “These are all false allegations. I’m just a party person who invites big spenders on my tables hence making many girls flock to my tables. That makes me know many girls and that’s it. Monic died with her passport meaning no one was demanding her money for taking her. Prior to her death I hadn’t seen her for over four to five weeks. I knew both girls and [they] were renting with different landlords. If no one in both flats was arrested or any of the landlords, then there was a reason. Both incidents were investigated by the Dubai police and maybe they can help you.”
Despite Mwesigwa’s denials, the mounting testimonies from survivors, relatives, and former associates paint a damning picture of systematic exploitation. Activists like Mariam Mwiza, who leads the non-governmental organization Overseas Workers Voices Uganda, have long warned of the dangers facing Ugandan workers in the Gulf. Mwiza has helped rescue more than 700 people and reports receiving five to ten new cases daily. “We get cases of people who have been promised to work, let’s say, in a supermarket. Then she ends up sold as a prostitute. Every month I see the number of cases, bodies landing at Entebbe airport. Most are from Dubai. If nothing is done, we are likely to go back into a state of rearing slave trade,” she told the BBC.
The scale of the problem is staggering. Uganda’s labor export industry is a major source of income, contributing an estimated $1.2 billion annually in tax revenue. While many Ugandans secure safe and legitimate jobs abroad, informal and illegal channels leave thousands vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. The BBC investigation suggests that trafficking networks are highly organized, often involving bribery of nightclub security, falsified paperwork, and layers of intermediaries to shield ringleaders from accountability.
The revelations have sparked outrage in Uganda. On September 15, 2025, Balaam Barugahare, Uganda’s Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, vowed to work with Interpol to secure Mwesigwa’s arrest. “This gentleman, featured in the investigative @BBCWorld story below, must be arrested. We shall work with @Interpol to ensure he is brought to justice. The desperation of our young people for income and employment should never be exploited by treating them as sex objects. Such acts are despicable,” he declared in a statement on X (formerly Twitter).
The BBC’s documentary, “Death in Dubai: #DubaiPortaPotty,” and its accompanying podcast, aim to restore dignity to victims like Monic and Kayla, whose stories were often reduced to memes or online abuse. As journalist Runako Celina reflected, “Monic’s story was reduced to a meme online, but she was so much more than that. Behind the viral hashtag and the online abuse was a young woman with dreams for a better life, and a family who loved her.”
As Uganda’s government pushes for accountability and families continue to seek justice, the case has become a stark warning about the perils facing those who chase opportunity abroad. The investigation’s findings are available internationally, with versions in English, Arabic, French, Swahili, and Hausa, and a podcast series offering deeper interviews and insights. For now, the pain and unanswered questions remain, but so too does the hope that exposing these abuses will finally spark meaningful change.