Human trafficking in the United Arab Emirates
By Arab Media Watch intern Yasin Kakande
16 November 2006
A new law in the United Arab Emirates combating human trafficking was issued on 11 November 2006 after the US State Department report on human trafficking this year put the country on a watch list over the flourishing business.
The report estimates that more than 10,000 young women from poor countries of sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States are forced into prostitution in the UAE
The 16-article law sets stiff penalties ranging from one year to life imprisonment, and fines from 20,000 dirhams to 1 million dirhams ($5,555-$27,000) for people and gangs found guilty of trafficking.
It defines human trafficking as mobilising, transporting, dispatching or receiving persons through the use or threat of force or any other forms of coercion, including kidnapping, deceit, manipulation, misuse of power, exploitation of others' weaknesses, or giving or receiving money or advantages to win the support of a person having influence over another person to exploit him or her.
Exploitation is defined to include exploitation for sex, engaging others in prostitution, servitude, forced labour, enslavement, quasi-slavery practices or detachment of organs.
The law imposes a prison term of at least five years for anyone engaging in human trafficking. The penalty is life imprisonment if the perpetrators are an organised criminal gang; if the victim is a female, child (under 18 years) or handicapped; or if the crime is committed through deceit, involves the use of force or threat of murder or bodily harm, or physical or psychological torture.
According to Dr Ushari Khalil, a former UN official and trainer on combating trafficking, the new law will help remove the country from the US watch list. The American report accuses the UAE government of turning a blind eye to the problem, which is becoming widespread in the country: "…many victims [of trafficking] are jailed along with criminals and deported," the report reads. "Prosecutions for sex trafficking are extremely low relative to the scope of the problem."
However, human rights officials from Dubai police dispute the US report and their published statistics. "We don't know where they get these statistics from because even we don't have them. In any case, if they have sources on the ground, why don't they help us identify the criminals and get them arrested?" asked Ayesha Ahmed Al Marri of the Dubai police human rights department.
The report also accuses the authorities of arresting victims of trafficking along with criminals and deporting them. "Prosecutions for sex trafficking are extremely low relative to the scope of the problem," it added. The report states that despite 100 reported complaints of trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2005, the UAE government reported only 22 convicts for the crime.
Al Marri dismisses the claims and says no victim of human trafficking was arrested and deported. Instead, they were helped and sent back home. "We've established contacts with human rights organisations of the countries from where the girls come. We work together to identify the places where the girls could be hidden in Dubai, get the right documents for them because most of them would have none, and then send them back home," she said.
She said it is a big challenge as most of the countries where these girls come from do not have embassies in the UAE, but nevertheless, the Dubai police human rights department cooperates with the home countries to get them home. "We've provided assistance like air tickets to the victims under our 'crime victim assistance programme', so we're surprised how anyone couldn't appreciate all these efforts," she said.
Al Marri said another challenge they face as human rights activists is to distinguish the victims of trafficking and those who got involved willingly.
"It's difficult to believe that someone stays in the country for three to four years doing prostitution and once the police nets her she claims she's trafficked. We don't want to accuse them because we know most of them are afraid of going to the police, but still it casts doubts for someone unwillingly to be in such servitude for such a long time," she said.
However, the US report praises UAE authorities for the closer screening of visa applications by its embassies in source countries; for having set up a human-trafficking division to investigate such crimes; and for training police, prosecutors, judges and government officials in combating trafficking.
Apart from some Africans and Asians, the majority of the trafficked girls come from Central Asia, particularly CIS members. Many are young, some former students who came looking for work but got caught in poverty, exploitation, hopelessness and fear.
According to Al Marri, these women arrive on weekly flights from their countries on pre-arranged visas from agents, who then confiscate their passports and put them to "work." They force them into buying back their travel documents and paying for the arranged visas and their dingy accommodation.
After their visas expire, the women are on the run and become entirely dependent on their touts. Each day a foreigner stays on without a visa is fined 100 dirhams ($30)
They reportedly have to give their touts in Dubai a large part of their income. According to sources, many of them are forced to entertain 10 or more clients a day in order to raise the minimum daily sum demanded by their touts. Those who try to escape the ordeal often get beaten up by the pimps.
Despite being on the wrong side of the law, these women are becoming bolder and bolder. They throng Dubai's beaches, nightclubs and hotel bars, and roam the streets. They have become so bold that even seasoned visitors are shocked by their aggressiveness.
One such visitor to a Dubai hotel said: "Never before have I seen such in-your-face prostitution. I just stepped into the hotel lift when a Russian girl openly intended to get into my hotel room."
The walls of many public toilets in Dubai are full of advertisements about prostitution, and scribblings give away phone numbers of touts who are the direct beneficiaries from this illegal profession.
According to a recent Criminal Investigation Department annual report, Dubai police registered 502 cases involving commercial sex workers in 2005, with 23 cases involving homosexuals and seven cases of rape.
Dubai police Chief Lieutenant-General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim condemns the advertisements, telling The Gulf Today earlier this year that Dubai police have always taken the necessary measures to put an end to the trafficking of women.
While launching Dubai police's anti-Aids campaign, Tamim said one of the weapons to fight the disease is the arrest and deportation of all commercial sex workers from the emirate. "The presence of sex workers poses a serious threat to the community as they're notorious for spreading the disease more than any other group," he said.
Another top police official said Dubai police had shown its commitment in cracking down on commercial sex workers by occasionally raiding their flats, acting on tip-offs and deporting many such women. "Believe me their numbers are much less now compared to earlier years. People shouldn't get the feeling that we crack down only on thieves," he said.
Presenting a paper in Dubai at an InterSec conference recently, Assistant Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service Tarrique Ghaffur said the massive increase in the illegal movement of humans had clearly become a global issue.
Traffickers have expanded the geographical scope of their activities to explore new markets in order to extend the reach and range of their criminal activities.
"It is estimated that millions of people around the world are victimised each year, mostly from vulnerable populations, including migrants, minorities, runaway or abused children and the poor," said Ghaffur.
Despite Dubai police's continuous efforts to control the problem, the home countries of these girls seem to do nothing to combat the illegal trafficking of hundreds and possibly thousands.
Some sources say officials of these countries are not looking beyond their own gains. They allege in particular that a number of officials visit Dubai to collect bribes from the local touts and the trafficked women.
Safe havens
With recent police raids of sex workers' flats in Dubai, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, operators are now moving to hotels as they are assumed to be safe havens. "It's expensive to stay in a hotel but safe. Hotels, like nightclubs, are the only safe havens we have as they're never raided by police," said one gang member.
According to him, it costs 4,500-12,000 dirhams ($1,250-$3,333) a month to rent a hotel room in Deira, while flats can be rented for 2,500 dirhams ($694). Besides the huge amount hotel owners charge the sex workers, they also take a commission of 10-200 dirhams ($3-$55) for the outside entrants. Every man entering for the services is supposed to pay this commission at the reception.
Iraq volatile
Thousands of Iraqi women are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous sex traffickers seeking to exploit young girls' desperate socio-economic situation for profit, UN agencies have reported.
While accurate statistics are hard to come by, the Organisation for Women's Freedom estimates that nearly 3,500 Iraqi women have gone missing since the US-led occupation began in 2003, and there is a high chance many have been traded for sex work in the Gulf, many unaware of their fate.
One popular story reported by IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, was of Mariam (name changed), 16, sold off by her father in Baghdad as a domestic worker in Dubai. Instead, she was forced into the sex trade.
"I was a virgin and didn't understand what sex was. I was told they [the traffickers] were going to get good money for my first night with an old local man who paid for my virginity. He was aggressive and hit me all the time," Mariam, who refused to reveal her real name, told IRIN.
She said she was taken to Dubai and kept in a house with 20 young girls, all sex workers. Before she left Iraq, she and her three sisters were being cared for by her father. Their mother was killed during the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
Mariam said her father could not afford to look after the children on his own and wanted her to go abroad, particularly given the increasing insecurity and daily violence in Iraq.
In November 2005, a member of a trafficking ring offered Mariam's father an advance payment of $6,000, saying she would work for a family in Dubai. He was promised that his daughter would return to Iraq after finishing a year's contract.
Mariam said she faced daily threats in Dubai from the traffickers, warning her from escaping. However, she managed to escape and is now back in Baghdad, looked after by the OWF.
"People are desperate to get money to support their families...just to have something to eat. If the government doesn't act on this issue, more women will be abused outside Iraq," said Nuha Salim, spokeswoman for the NGO.
The Iraqi government says it is investigating cases of women being trafficked and has arrested some traffickers, but tackling security in the country is its main priority.