Dubai: A guard was jailed for three years for running a brothel in a flat and collaborating with fugitive suspects in tricking European women with bogus job offers and forcing them into prostitution.
Thanks to a WhatsApp message a Kyrgyz woman had sent to her brother in her home country and flat’s location, she and her compatriot friend were freed from the prostitution den.
The two Kyrgyz women had been promised work as maids in Dubai and were flown here in July 2016.
Once the women discovered that they had been tricked and were kept in the flat to work as prostitutes, one of them shared the flat’s location with her brother.
The brother called up the Kyrgyz Consulate in Dubai, which sent two diplomatic staff to the flat in Dubai International City.
The consulate’s staff contacted the police that dispatched a patrol team to the flat before it was discovered that the place was being run as a brothel.
Police freed the two women and apprehended two other Kyrgyz women, aged 21 and 24, who had been willingly working as prostitutes in the flat.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 27-year-old Bangladeshi guard for running a brothel in the flat.
According to the primary judgement, the Kyrgyz women, who were arrested, were jailed for six months each for working in prostitution.
The Bangladeshi defendant was also convicted of sexually exploiting the two women [who were freed] and forcing them into the sex trade.
The 27-year-old and another suspect, who remains at large, committed a human trafficking crime by tricking the freed women with a job offer, flying them into Dubai and coercing them to work as prostitutes.
The flat that was being run as a brothel will be shut down for three years, during which it cannot be reopened without obtaining a prosecutors’ consent, said the primary ruling.
The guard and the two prostitutes will be deported after serving their punishments.
The Kyrgyz women defendants pleaded not guilty in court and contended that they did not work as prostitutes on their own will but they were forced to work in the sex industry.
The Bangladeshi guard pleaded innocent.
A police corporal said two Kyrgyz consulate staff members called up the police and reported that there was a problem in the flat.
“We headed to the flat and saw the staff waiting outside the door. The staff notified us that the relative of one of the Kyrgyz women contacted them from Kyrgyzstan saying two women were locked up in the flat. They said the relative notified them that the women were being forced into prostitution although they had been promised to work as maids. We raided the flat and spotted the Bangladeshi man seated behind a desk at the entrance. The flat was arranged in the form of a brothel whereby there were curtains separating the bedrooms. An on-site investigation revealed that the female suspects had been willingly working as prostitutes in the flat. The 27-year-old man claimed that the flat was being run as a massage spa and not as a brothel,” the corporal testified.
The three defendants have appealed their primary ruling and are scheduled to appear before the Appeal Court soon.
