DUBAI // A woman claimed she was forced to work as a prostitute after being tricked into coming to the country to work in a beauty salon.
The Criminal Court on Sunday heard that the 23-year-old Pakistani was visited in her home country by a man and a woman.
“They spoke to me and my husband and said that I will be paid a lot of money if I joined them to work at a beauty salon in Dubai, so my husband agreed,” she said. On March 31 this year she joined the couple on a flight to Sharjah.
Once in the UAE, a man picked them up and took them to his house.
The next day, they went to a small apartment in Dubai, where the woman was told she would begin work. She assumed she would be going to a salon, but instead she was taken to a hotel.
“The same couple met with a man. He gave them money then I was forced to go with him and have sex with him against my will. I cried and I told them I wanted to return home to my family, but they locked me up and I was also beaten,” she said.
On her third day in the UAE, she had an argument with the other residents of the apartment and the landlord told them all to leave.
As they were going to the house of the man who picked her up from the airport, she managed to escape and call the police.
R A, 45, a Pakistani, her daughter K A, 22, as well as their compatriots A S, 40, M Z, 45, and T A, 34, were arrested and charged with human trafficking.
K A, A S, M Z, and T A all denied running a prostitution business, while the mother and her daughter denied working as prostitutes while A S, M Z, and T A denied making a profit from prostitution. The next hearing is on September 21.
salamir@thenational.ae
