Dubai: Three workers and a woman have been jailed for three years each for running a brothel where two 17-year-old girls were found to be working as prostitutes.
One of the Pakistani girls was reported to have been convinced by her 24-year-old countrywoman to fly in to Dubai to work in prostitution in a flat at Al Baraha.
Once the girl landed at the airport, the older woman picked her up and accompanied her to a flat where there was another Pakistani teenaged girl in January.
The two girls willingly worked in prostitution for their three countrymen workers, aged 21, 29 and 32, who happened to be running the flat in Al Baraha as a prostitution den.
Dubai Police’s human trafficking department were alerted by an informant that the Pakistani men had been sexually exploiting teenage girls and making them work as prostitutes in the flat.
A police informant posed as a client and visited the flat as part of a sting operation.
Shortly after the informant entered the flat, the police raided the place and arrested the three workers and a 25-year-old Pakistani, who happened to be having sex with the woman.
The four Pakistani men were taken into custody while the 24-year-old woman remains at large.
On Thursday, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the Pakistani trio and the 24-year-old fugitive of running a brothel and benefiting financially from one of the prostitutes by taking the proceeds of sex.
Presiding judge Urfan Omar fined each of them Dh100,000.
However, the four convicts were acquitted of human trafficking and sexually exploiting the 17-year-old girls who were found to have been willingly working in prostitution.
The customer was also jailed for six months for having consensual sex with the absconding defendant.
The convicts will be deported following the completion of their punishments. The flat that was being run as a brothel will be shut down and will not be opened except upon prosecutors’ consent, said presiding judge Omar.
The four defendants had pleaded not guilty.
The 24-year-old was sentenced in absentia.
The 17-year-old girl testified that her countrywoman convinced her to come to Dubai and work in prostitution.
“She knew that I had been working in prostitution in Pakistan and she convinced me to do the same in Dubai. I told my parents that I would be working as a saleswoman so that they allowed me to travel to Dubai. Once I arrived, she picked me up and took me to the flat. She told me that I would be working for the three Pakistani men suspects who were running the brothel. There was another girl in the flat … we used to get 10 clients per day. We used to charge each client Dh100 for sex. Later on, the 24-year-old woman flew to Pakistan and she never returned. The 32-year-old defendant used to enter the number of clients and the proceeds in a log book. The 29-year-old suspect was the one who had rented the flat,” she said.
A lieutenant from the police’s human trafficking section said they raided the flat and apprehended the defendants in a sting operation.
“The informant alerted us that the convicts had been making teenagers work in prostitution. That is considered a human trafficking crime. We obtained prosecutors’ permission, raided the flat and apprehended the culprits,” he testified to prosecutors.
The ruling remains subject to appeal.
