- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 04:57 06:11 12:09 15:28 18:01 19:15
Two Bangladeshis were sentenced to 10 years in prison for human trafficking, forcing a 17-year-old compatriot into prostitution and running a brothel, by the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance.
Other five women were sentenced to one year in jail for engaging in prostitution. One of the women was also accused of human trafficking, running a den and forcing women into prostitution.
According to the records, a worried Bangladeshi mother, who had not receive any phone call from her daughter for a month since her arrival in the UAE on a maid’s visa, helped in the arrest of the three human traffickers and four prostitutes.
The mother called her compatriot JH who worked as a blacksmith in the UAE and asked him to search for her 17-year-old daughter MJ who was issued a maid’s visa by the daughter of a woman she knew in Bangladesh.
“I was given the descriptions of the girl by her mother, but thinking where to search, I called my friend and asked him to help me. We went together to Hor Al Anz expecting that we may find her in a prostitution den. While we were roaming around, a Bangladeshi approached us and we expressed interest in sex. He accompanied us to a flat where we saw three Bangladeshi women and an Indonesian woman. We suspected the youngest among the Bangladeshi women to be the one we were looking for, so my friend asked for her. After entering a room with her, she told him that she was forced to offer sex to customers and that she is being confined in the flat,” JH testified.
JH left the den and sought the help of a Pakistani he saw in the street to call police as he did not speak Arabic. An undercover policeman arrived and knocked at the flat’s door.
When a man opened the door, the policeman pretended to be a sex customer. The man told him that all the women are not working at the moment and asked him to come the next day and shut the door. Police raided the place and arrested all who were in.
The victim told police that when she was in Bangladesh, the mother of SE, one of the women arrested in the den, told her mother about finding a job for her as a maid for a monthly salary of 95,000 BD taka.
A man called MM issued her the visa and picked her up from the airport upon her arrival in the UAE on June 16.
“He took me to an Arabic style house where he locked me up for three days after which he told me that I will be working in prostitution. When I refused, he lashed me with a belt and threatened that he will not give me my passport which he took from me on my arrival at the airport in UAE. After three days, he took me to this flat where he and SE forced me into prostitution. The other women were willingly doing that,” the victim testified.
SE denied running a prostitution den but admitted to having consensual sex with MM. However, the other four prostitutes who were all on maid’s visas and had absconded from their employers and identified as YY, 39, Indonesian, SH, 40 Bangladeshi, ML, 36, Bangladeshi and ET, 34, Indonesian told investigators that SE and MM were running the brothel with the help of HM, 27, Bangladeshi carpenter.
At the time of raiding the den, MM was out of the country. After his arrival, police arrested him in Hor Al Anz.The victim recognised him when shown to her via identification parades.
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