Dubai: A woman and two men have been accused of exploiting the economic situations of two minor girls and coercing them into prostitution after they flew them into Dubai using passports with falsified details.

The two Bangladeshi girls, both aged under 18, were lured with offers of jobs as maids with attractive pay and were said to have had their ages falsified in the passports to be able to fly them into Dubai where they were locked up in a flat in Naif and forced to work as prostitutes in April.

The Bangladeshi woman, J.A., her 26-year-old countryman, M.A., and a 46-year-old Indian businessman, M.K., tricked the girls, flew them out of Bangladesh [through one of their acquaintances], confiscated their passports once they arrived at the airport and took them to the flat in Naif, according to records.

The trio used the flat as a brothel, forced the girls to have sex with strangers and pocketed the earnings.

Records said the girls were asked to pay nearly Dh600 to process new passports with falsified ages to be able to come and work in Dubai as maids for a salary of Dh1,200.

Prosecutors charged the trio with exploiting the girls’ poverty and need for money for sexual benefits and coerced them to work in prostitution in the flat they ran as a brothel.

The woman suspect, J.A., remains at large.

The businessman pleaded not guilty and refuted the accusations when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.

“I did not commit human trafficking or exploit the girls sexually. I had only rented out that flat and did not run it as a brothel,” M.K. told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi.

Meanwhile, M.A. claimed initially that he only worked in the flat and pleaded not guilty.

“What kind of business was being run in the flat?” the presiding judge asked M.A.

Thereafter, M.A. retracted his denial and admitted that the flat was being used for prostitution and he used to hand over the earnings to M.K.

According to the charge sheet, the trio committed human trafficking and ran a brothel. M.K. is also accused of benefiting financially by pocketing the money that a number of prostitutes made from working for him in sex trade.

He was also charged with having consensual sex with one of the girls, possessing 12 bottles of liquor and hiring M.A. to work for him illegally.

Meanwhile, M.A. was additionally charged with overstaying in the UAE and working for someone who is not his sponsor. One of the girls told prosecutors that she is uneducated and her desperate need for money to pay for his father’s medicines made her agree to come to Dubai and work as a maid.

“I divorced four months prior to coming to Dubai. I had met someone called Naim and he convinced me to come and work here … I paid him money to get a new passport issued with a new age after he told me that I was too young to be allowed to travel. A woman welcomed me at the airport and she took me to a car. M.K. drove the car to a flat … they took away my passport. They locked me there for a few days before they said I had to work in prostitution. J.A. was also present in the flat and she told me that she is married and worked in prostitution. I worked as a prostitute after they enticed me to do so and because I needed the money. J.A. used to pay me around Dh2,300 as salary,” she testified to prosecutors.

The other girl gave a similar statement to prosecutors but she added that she had refused to work in prostitution for nearly 15 days. “Then M.K. threatened to publish my nude photos on Facebook before I was convinced to work in prostitution,” she claimed.

An anti-human trafficking police officer claimed that the suspects were arrested after they raided the flat following an informant’s tipoff.

The trial resumes next month.