Dubai: Three Bangladeshi men were sentenced to seven years in jail for trafficking a teenage girl to Dubai where they locked her up and forced her into prostitution, a Dubai court heard on Monday.
Police were tipped off about the incident in April of this year.
According to official records the 17-year-old girl came to the UAE from Bangladesh in January of this year on the promise of getting work in a massage parlour from a friend in her home country. The defendants arranged a passport for the victim, which had a false date of birth to make her appear older. They also met her off the plane at Dubai Airport.
However, the defendants then locked her in a flat in Bur Dubai and forced her to have sex with men for money.
“I left school at eighth grade and didn’t work,” the girl testified. “My family agreed to send me to work. They took me to a two bedroom flat and I saw three other women inside. They told me that I will work as a prostitute.”
She started crying and told a fourth defendant, who is still at large, that she couldn’t work as a prostitute. He then told her she needed to pay the cost it took to bring her to the UAE in order to return to Bangladesh.
“He told me that I need to pay back Dh13,000,” she said “I kept crying and was sick for a week. Later they forced me to have sex with a customer for Dh80. They locked the doors at night in order to stop us from escaping.”
In April, a Pakistani customer felt sympathy and gave her the number of Dubai Police so that she could report her situation.
A police officer said the girl called Dubai Police claiming that she was a teenager who had been forced into prostitution.
“We raided the flat and rescued the girl. We arrested three Bangladeshi men and other girls who were working as prostitutes. The victim told me that she doesn’t work as a prostitute and that they threatened her and forced her to prostitution,” said the officer.
The three defendants were charged with human trafficking and running a brothel.
Judges ordered to deport the defendants after serving their jail term.
