Housemaid was lured into UAE, forced into the sex trade

The Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance sentenced an Indian businessman to five years in prison after finding him guilty of human trafficking, running a brothel and confining a woman and forcing her into prostitution.

SAB, 50, was also ordered to be deported after serving his jail term.

According to the records, SAB, along with two others, one of whom has already been convicted by the court and sentenced to three years in jail on the same charges, had confined and forced a widow into prostitution after bringing her into the country on the pretext of getting her a job.

The victim, MFA, 31, Indian, testified that her husband had died in 2005 and that she came for the first time to the UAE to look for a job to support her two little sons. She used to search for a housemaid’s job by going from house to house and leaving her mobile phone number.

“None of the families at whose doors I knocked offered me a job, so I returned to India after about a month. While there, I received a call from someone called Mohammed who claimed he is from Mumbai and that he got my number from a family in Dubai. He said he could arrange a housemaid’s job for me for two years with a family, without making it clear  whether the job was in his house or another’s, for Dh800 monthly salary.

“I told him that I cannot leave my children for two years. Then he offered me a visit visa for a month and if I wanted to continue, he said a work visa could be arranged. I agreed and sent him a photocopy of my passport and a photo to his email.

“A week later he told me that the visa was ready. He took me from the railway station in Mumbai to the airport and so I came to Dubai where I met SAB and OSD who picked me from the airport. SAB was supposed to drop me at the house of the family where I was to work but instead they took me to a one-room flat where the room was divided into three partitions.

“I wondered why they needed a maid for such a small place when the two told me that I will work in this place. OSD took my passport and when he saw from my passport that I had visited Dubai earlier, he asked me if I knew anyone in the city. When I said no, he agreed to leave the mobile phone with me to allow me  to talk to my children. The two left and locked the door from outside.

“The next day, SAB told me that OSD will stay with me in the same room and that I will work as a prostitute. When I refused and asked him for my passport and return air-ticket, he asked me to pay him 200,000 Indian rupees which he claimed he had paid to the man in India. He left the room when I told him that I don’t have that much money.

“I called the man in India and told him what had happened. He said I should obey them. The two forced me to offer sex though I was screaming and resisting the customer. The forced me to offer sex to three to seven customers every day without being able to leave the room as it was locked all the time. They also used to take tips given by some customers.

“SAB threatened to sell me to others who will exploit me in the sex trade for five years and I will not be able to return to my children for such a long time.

“Another girl was brought into the room and she was also forced into prostitution.  Because of excessive sex, I was suffering from pain. I called my family and told them what had happened and they gave me a UAE phone number. I called the number and thought it was an answering machine.

“Three days later I got the police number from a customer. I called the police and told them the address which I had got from the customer. I guided the police to the flat. When the police knocked at the door, OSD escaped through the kitchen ventilator,” the victim testified.

Police later arrested OSD and SABB who used to monitor all entrants to the flat via a CCTV he had fixed in the corridor of the building.

OSD was sentenced to three years in jail followed by deportation.



 

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