Lt. Col. Abdullah Al Hadidi. © Gulf News |
Lt. Col. Abdullah Al Hadidi, who heads the Investigation Unit at the emirate's police department, said that many people have been filing complaints against these parlours and the improper behaviour and dress of the women working in them.
In a statement published in the Ras Al Khaimah Police Magazine, Lt. Col. Al Hadidi stressed that parents have complained to the police that they are afraid for their children who can be led astray.
The unit has been conducting a long-term investigation into these parlours and it has practically been proved to the police that these places are only legal covers for the practice of immoral acts.
All the women working in these parlours had not come here to work as masseuses. He added that their customers were mainly adolescents.
The official stressed that after these massage centres were placed under surveillance, the police noticed that no woman customer frequented them.
He said that some of the women working in the parlours even went outside with their customers.
Some of these parlours, he alleged, made their women workers go out in the evenings to the shopping malls whenever they felt that the number of customers was declining.
Many of the people involved in indulging in immoral acts inside and outside these massage parlours, he said, had been arrested and sent to court. Yet the violations continued and have even increased, and the strategies used by these people are getting bolder by the day.
Some of these parlours, he noted, had been placing photographs of their female staff at the entrance to enable the customer to choose his masseuse.
Most of the women are not residents in the UAE and most are on visit or tourist visas.
He added that a detailed report had been submitted by the police to the Municipality about the violations of these parlours. The report included some recommendations to minimise these violations.
One of the main recommendations was to have male staff for massage centres for men and female staff for massage centres for women, and to strictly monitor them and penalise the offenders.
The Municipality, he said, has already accepted the proposal of the police and sent letters to the parlours which have not adhered to the regulations.
He pointed out that a dangerous situation was being created with the spread of these massage parlours as they are using their commercial licences to run prostitution dens.
The mission of the police becomes more difficult when these parlours continue to get licences.
Under the law, he noted, women working for these parlours should be licensed by the Ministry of Health and the performance should be monitored by the municipality.
But he added that the licences of these centres had not been going through the proper channels. Abdullah Al Naqbi, Secretary General of the Ras Al Khaimah Municipal Council, said that the municipality has imposed tough prerequisites for new licences for the massage parlours in the emirate.
He stressed that only women above the age of 30 are allowed to work in these parlours, and that men will not be allowed to work as masseurs for women.
The parlours should be housed in commercial buildings that do not have apartments, and the customers must be above the age of 21.
He stressed that the aim of all these prerequisites was to regulate the performance of these massage parlours.
He added that the inspection campaigns show that the municipality is serious about bringing these violations to an end.
Maher Hammad Al Obad, who heads the emirate's Labour and Social Affairs Department, said that the department has received many complaints from people who live near the parlours.
He stressed that all the authorities have started coming down hard on parlours committing serious violations.
Women working there should be licensed from the Ministry of Health before they are licensed by the department, he said.
The department conducts inspection campaigns to ensure that all the women working here are on their sponsors' visas, and if this rule is found to have been broken, the department bans the massage parlour from functioning.
In cases of other violations, the department imposes heavy penalties or shuts down the parlour temporarily until the violation is removed.
He stressed that the department usually issues the licences to the women working in these massage parlours according to the recommendations of the emirate's Municipal Council.
