DUBAI 24 April 2017: Two Bangladeshis allegedly prompted a maid to abscond her employer, forced her into prostitution and sold her to a police informer for Dh2,800, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.
In 2015, 31-year-old Bangladeshi TS arrived in the country on a maid’s visa. After working for about a year and a half in her employer’s house, she received a phone call from her country fellow MI who asked her about her work conditions.
“He also asked me how much salary do I earn. After knowing that, he told me that this salary is very little and that other maids who works on hourly basis earn much more than that. He incited me and helped me to run away from my employer’s house in Abu Dhabi,” testified TS.
MI took the maid to a flat in Chinese Cluster in International City in Dubai.
“In the flat, I met two women who informed me that they work in prostitution. MI told me that I shall work in prostitution. As I refused he forcibly had sex with me,” said the woman who did not say how MI got her number.
After a beating, the maid submitted to MI’s will.
In November 2016, MI took the woman to a client’s accommodation. After sometime, MI called her and asked her to get down where his friend MA, was waiting for her.
Entrapment
Police received a tip about MI, who was offering a woman for sale and arranged with the informer to trap the accused red handed.
After negotiations, MI agreed to sell the woman for Dh2,800 with the handing over be at International City.
Police supplied the informer with the amount and he went to pay the amount and receive the woman.
MI called his friend MA to pick up the woman from the customer’s accommodation.
MA met the woman and the two rode to the informer’s car.
The woman got into a car where MA was with the buyer. As the latter paid the amount, he gave the sign to policemen who were around in the area and they arrested the seller and the woman.
Police arrested MA and the woman and later arrested MI.
Absconder
MI told the police that he came to the country in 2010 and absconded from his employer and was staying illegally.
He claimed that he started working in prostitution only two months before his arrest.
MI also claimed that a man dropped the woman at the den he was running and that the woman expressed her wish to work in prostitution.
She was offering sex to a customer in International City and sometime she used to go by taxi to the client’s accommodation, he claimed.
“The man who brought her to me, called me and asked me to sell the woman for Dh3,000. A man expressed willingness to buy her for Dh2,800,” MI told investigators denying that he was the one who sold her.
Police arrested five other women in the flat which was operated as a prostitution den.
The women told investigators that MA is the one who guard the flat and brought sex customers.
The two were accused of human trafficking and the court will reconvene on May 4.
By Lolyana Zaki