Dubai: An Iraqi supervisor and his son were on Thursday jailed for five years each after being convicted of forcing two Iraqi teenage girls into prostitution and dirty dancing.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 47-year-old father, Q.D. and his 30-year-old son, W.D., of human trafficking.
The court ruled that both father and son had exploited the financial hardships faced by the girls, a 13-year-old student and a 19-year-old visitor, and forced them into the sex industry after conspiring with their mothers.
Q.D. will also spend an additional six months in prison after the court convicted him of using fake travel documents to apply for girls' visas. He is said to have claimed that the two girls were his daughters.
Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad also sentenced a 45-year-old Iraqi housewife, A.S., and W.D.'s 22-year-old wife, R.A., to six months in jail for sexually exploiting the teenagers.
Another 24-year-old Iraqi girl, H.S., was handed a six-month jail term for working in the sex industry.
Presiding Judge Abdul Jawad said the convicts will be deported after serving out their sentences.
The trafficked girls told the court that they had escaped Iraq's instability only to become victims of human traffickers who flew them from Syria, using fake documents, to Dubai to work as prostitutes and dancers.
The primary judgment is still subject to appeal within 15 days.
