Bangladeshi maid 'forced to work as prostitute'

A Bangladeshi woman who paid Dh4,300 to come to the UAE to work as a housemaid was instead forced to work as a prostitute, a court hears.

DUBAI // A Bangladeshi woman who paid Dh4,300 (US$1,200) to come to the UAE to work as a housemaid was instead forced to work as a prostitute, a court heard yesterday. The Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance heard that the primary defendants in the case, MS, 32, and MQ, 35, brought the woman into the country on a legitimate work permit through an employment agency in Bangladesh last September. The four defendants, all of whom are Bangladeshi, were arrested last November after an undercover police officer, posing as a buyer, purchased the victim for Dh4,000. The court heard that when the alleged victim, AI, arrived in the country, ---- MS had met her at the airport and taken her to a flat in the Baraha area of Deira. There he told her that instead of working as a housemaid for an Emirati family, as she had thought, she would be working as a prostitute. Although initially reluctant, she agreed to work as a prostitute and did so until she fell out with one of her flatmates two months later, and asked to leave. She said that MS agreed to let her go and asked her to pack her bags. On Nov 22 last year she left the flat with MS and MQ and went down to the building entrance. The other two defendants, HA, 28, and NM, 26, were paid to transport the woman to the buyer's flat. They were arrested after the woman was handed over to them. All four men are charged with human trafficking and forcing her into prostitution. They all deny the charges. [e-mail]