Legal Protection of Domestic Workers in Uganda: Employer Obligations and the Enforcement of Employment Rights: A Systematic Review

Domestic workers in Uganda work in private homes where employer obligations on contracts, pay, hours, health and termination are hard to monitor but no systematic review has looked at how Ugandan law protects them or how far their employment rights are enforced. We identified, appraised and synthesised scholarly evidence on the legal protection of domestic workers in Uganda (Ugandan migrant domestic workers abroad included) with attention to employer obligations and enforcement using PRISMA 2020. Consensus (two searches; 39 records) and CORE (three searches; 196 records) were searched and records imported into Zotero on 28 October 2026. After duplicates were removed (97), unique records screened (138) and reports sought (10). Five could be assessed and 5 not retrieved. Studies were eligible under four inclusion criteria (In-1 to In-4) if they analysed legal protection, employer obligations or enforcement of employment rights of Ugandan domestic workers. Quality was appraised with JBI critical appraisal checklists and findings synthesised thematically. Four studies (2021–2024) were included: qualitative study of young domestic workers in Kampala; legal and policy analysis and qualitative study of Ugandan migrant domestic workers in the Middle East; doctoral socio legal thesis on Uganda and Saudi Arabia. Four themes emerged: domestic work is excluded or overlooked from labour law and enforcement; social norms and fear prevent reporting; protection of migrant domestic workers abroad depends on weak recruitment and bilateral frameworks and remedies are legal recognition, revision of labour export laws and stronger monitoring. No included study analyses the employer obligations of domestic employers within Uganda under the Employment Act 2006 nor reports enforcement data. The evidence is small and qualitative and most JBI criteria could not be judged from accessible text. Priorities are doctrinal analysis of the Act as it applies to domestic workers, data from labour officers and Industrial Court and studies of employers.