Sordid tBeaten, whipped and deprived of contact with the outside world, an Indian teenager has painfully recalled how she endured a year and a half of hell being forced to work as a prostitute in Dubai brothels.
The 18-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous, came to the UAE believing she was to be employed as a maid to support her family after her father died, told 7DAYS she thought she would die in one of the seedy sex dens.
“I was beaten regularly with a mobile chord and locked up inside flats. I was never allowed to speak to my family or go out. I was abused all the time. It was hell,” she said.
The teen had paid dhs5,000 to an agent in India who promised her a reputable job in the UAE.
“The agent looked like a good man. I trusted him blindly and gave him the money hoping that he would get me the job. Instead he handed over me to the agents who ran a sex racket. I was devastated.”
The young victim said she was met by two men and a woman at Dubai International Airport upon her arrival in the country and taken to a flat in Bur Dubai where around ten other young girls were also being held captive along with her cousin.
“I was put up at a place in Bur Dubai to start with but was later shifted to a flat near fish roundabout in Deira. It was a dingy flat with no ventilation. I was locked up there along with other prisoners,” she said.
“We were never allowed to go outside alone. Someone always used to accompany us and he would keep a close watch on what we were doing. “If we resisted their instructions they would abuse and beat us.
“It was so terribly harrowing.”
She was not allowed any contact with her family back in India during the 18 months she was trapped in the brothels and was deprived of food by her captors.
“Whenever I tried to contact my family they used to snatch away the phone. They would abuse and beat me up. None of my family knew what was happening. I felt like I was dying every day,” the girl added.
The teen was only freed from the hell-hole after a raid on one of the brothels by Dubai Police back in March. Her mother had been worried sick after having no contact with her daughter for a year and a half but the pair were finally reunited after she landed at Hyderabad airport earlier this year.
“I was so shocked to hear of what happened to her. We are really struggling to return to a normal way of life after this,” her mother said.
The young victim spoke of her trauma after Indian police arrested the alleged kingpin of the traffickers at Mumbai airport last Wednesday.
Mahesh Bhagawat, deputy inspector general of police for the Eluru range in Andhra Pradesh, said that the women being held by the traffickers were forced to entertain between ten and 15 customers a day. “They were harassed physically and forced into prostitution. The women were all aged 17 to 20 years old,” he said.
The young girl who hails from a remote village in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh is now trying to start her life afresh.
She has got a job at a shop in Hyderabad and is hoping she can forget what has happened and take care of her family.
“My only concern at the moment is to get my two younger sisters married and see them live happily,” she said.
“What happened to me should not happen to anyone else.”
RINGLEADER SNAREDThe alleged kingpin of the human trafficking ring has been arrested on suspicion of rape.
Abdul Hamid Omar Abba, 50, was detained by cops at Mumbai airport last week for allegedly assaulting the 18-year-old woman who he forced to work as a prostitute in Dubai.
Two other men involved in the sick trade have also been arrested in India.
Five further people are still being hunted by officers, including one woman, who was among those who met the teen at Dubai International Airport and transported her to the brothels.
Indian police said Abba used to live in Bur Dubai and worked as a taxi driver. He is thought to have worked with various agents to bring the women to Dubai to work in the sex trade.
“We are coordinating with the Indian embassy in the UAE to arrest the remaining culprits with the help of Dubai Police and bring them to India. This is a huge and serious racket which has been going on for years,” said Mahesh Bhagawat, deputy inspector general of police for the Eluru range in Andhra Pradesh.
Police say Abba would take dhs5,000 from women who believed they were paying a recruitment company to get a reputable job in the UAE.
He then produced fake birth certificates for the girls to show that they were 30 years old so that they could get visas to work as domestic help.STRIDES TAKEN TO TACKLE THE SORDID GANGSThe UAE has been working to bag traffickers who blight the streets of the Emirates.
The number of human trafficking cases taken to court in 2009 more than doubled from the previous year, according to the annual report from the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking in the UAE, which was released in May.
The report showed that 43 cases went before the courts in 2009, which involved 86 trafficking victims.
In those cases a total of 125 defendants were prosecuted, and 35 of the 43 cases ended in conviction.
Of those, 21 occurred in Dubai. Fifteen cases were recorded in Sharjah and the Northern Emirates, and seven took place in Abu Dhabi.
In one of the most severe incidents, the Criminal Court in Abu Dhabi sentenced seven men to life in prison - the harshest penalty possible - for running the emirate’s largest known human-trafficking ring.
“For the majority of trafficked persons, it is only when they arrive in the UAE that they realise that the work they are promised does not exist and they are forced instead to get employment in jobs or conditions to which they did not give their consent,” the report said.
fareed.rahman@7days.ae ale of slavery victim - National News
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