UAE | General
Refuge shelter boss treated us like servants, say abused women
A number of abused women have accused the owner of a Dubai-based refuge of profiting from their misery.
- By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:03 March 9, 2008
- A former resident of the shelter. Women are claiming the owner of the shelter forced them to speak to the media and treated them as servants.
- Image Credit: Bassma Al Jandaly/Gulf News
Dubai: A number of abused women have accused the owner of a Dubai-based refuge of profiting from their misery.
They claim that Sharla Musabeh, owner of the City of Hope shelter in Umm Suqeim, had received thousands of dollars from foreign media organisations in return for supplying details of the women's troubles.
Fourteen women of different nationalities, and their children, have exclusively voiced their experiences at the City of Hope shelter to Gulf News.
At least two of the victims alleged a top US newspaper paid Sharla thousands of dollars to publish their stories.
Bakhtiyor Madaev, Consul General of the Republic of Uzbekistan, accused Sharla of purposely defaming his country by selling stories about two Uzbek women against their will. Sharla allegedly sold the stories for $2,000 (Dh7,345) each, he added.
Madaev said: "We understand Sharla is using ladies in trouble to make money from international media organisations. She mistreated Uzbek women facing problems in the UAE and forced them to make terrible statements about Uzbekistan.
"She made them say it is a poor country and that Uzbek women working in the UAE were all prostitutes."
The consulate will file a case against Sharla to Dubai Police.
Life of luxury
Ahmad Obaid Al Mansouri, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children (DFWC), said 14 women and their children had escaped from the City of Hope and were now being taken care of by the DFWC.
"We recently received two young Uzbek women who were forced by Sharla to stay at the Umm Suqeim villa for one month. She used to pocket money from their misery by selling their stories to a number of foreign journalists. We are obtaining outpasses for them and tickets to travel home," Al Mansouri said.
He accused Sharla of exploiting the women staying in her villa.
"She is living a life of luxury," he said.
A senior police official said there were a number of cases filed against Sharla.
"We are investigating the accusations against her," he said.
Two Uzbek victims, aged 26 and 21, told Gulf News they suffered at the hands of Sharla. The women, now being looked after at DFWC, said they arrived in Dubai in January en route to Turkey.
"One of our friends back home asked us to contact someone she knew when we arrived in Dubai. The woman came to the airport and told us we could stay at her house. She also obtained visas for us.
"The same day she took us to a beauty salon and later to a nightclub but when we refused to enter she slapped us severely. At that point we discovered we were victims of human trafficking.
"We ran away from the nightclub and headed back to the airport, where we stayed inside a mosque for two days without any food or money. Luckily an Emirati man found us crying. He helped us and took us to our consulate."
The consulate tried to find a place for the two women to stay until they obtained outpasses and tickets home. In the meantime, they were advised to stay with a woman called Sharla.
"The day we arrived she brought a well-known US media organisation representative to meet us. She took $4,000 in return for our stories. Sharla told us to say our country was poor and that Dubai was also a bad place.
Shout and scream
"We never spoke to the media. Sharla talked to them on our behalf and she spoke in English, which we couldn't understand. We kept begging her to let us go to our consulate. But she refused until one night, a month later, we ran away.
The women said Sharla treated them as her servants. We used to wash her clothes and make her coffee.
"She used to shout and scream at us all the time."
Consul General Madaev described the incident as "a very serious matter."
"When the two girls came to us it was late at night and we were advised to send them to this woman. Unfortunately, Sharla took them and disappeared from sight. We contacted her the next day and asked why she had sold their stories to several newspapers but she said they [the women] were happy and making money.
"We tried to contact Sharla several times after that in an effort to bring them back. but our attempts were in vain. One day we sent someone to the villa and threatened to contact the police."
An activist at an international organisation told Gulf News about another of Sharla's victims, a Russian woman whose newborn baby was sold to a British family.
The woman, now in a Dubai jail awaiting deportation, said she was pregnant with an illegitimate child during her stay at the City of Hope. Within days of giving birth Sharla had sold the baby. Police are investigating.
A Ugandan woman at DFWC, who stayed at the City of Hope for two years, said Sharla used her and her daughter.
"Sharla forced me to talk with foreign media organisations. I was told in advance what I should say. Sharla said she was a high-profile woman and threatened to send us to jail if we spoke out about what was happening."
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