Cook rescues an exploited victim

Dubai: A cook, who went to a brothel, turned into a saviour when he listened to the agonies of a sexually-exploited woman before he abetted the police to rescue her.

The 27-year-old Nepalese cook, J.B., was said to have paid nearly Dh200 when he visited the brothel three times to give the 18-year-old Bangladeshi woman his shoulder to cry on.

Prosecution records said J.B. talked the woman to write how she was brought here and allegedly coerced into prostitution before he reported the police.

The Nepalese cook cooperated with an anti-human trafficking police team that raided the brothel and rescued the 18-year-old woman and her 20-year-old countrywoman.

Prosecutors accused a Bangladeshi man, R.A., and his countrywoman N.R., of abusing the neediness of the two Bangladeshi women and coercing them into prostitution. The defendants were accused of sexually exploiting the women by using against them physical force and threats. They were also charged with running a brothel.

R.A. and N.R. pleaded not guilty and refuted their charges when they entered an innocent plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

“I don’t know the victims and I don’t know this woman [N.R.],” said R.A. when he defended himself before presiding judge Wajdi Al Menyawi in courtroom three.

The cook testified that he was with his friends in Naif Souq when a pimp offered to take them to a brothel to have sex with Nepalese women for Dh20 on January 20.

“We did not believe that our countrywomen were having sex with strangers. The pimp guided us to the flat. There were two surveillance cameras installed outside the first-floor flat. The women were not Nepalese as the pimp claimed to us. When I asked her where she hails from, she collapsed and hugged me then she started crying. Then she claimed to me that she was brought from her homeland to work as a housemaid, but the defendants tricked her and coerced her into prostitution.

“I saw the bruises and signs of beatings all over her body. The next time I visited her, I paid Dh100 without having sex and I bought for her a coat because she felt cold. I asked her to write her story in a letter to give it to the police to help her escape. Four days later I paid Dh50 for my third visit… I didn’t have sex with her and took the letter,” the cook claimed to prosecutors.

An Emirati policeman testified that J.B. handed them the woman’s letter and that was written in English. The 18-year-old claimed that an Indian sex client wrote the letter for her in English.

Prosecution records said J.B. and a plain-clothed policeman posed as sex clients before a team raided the flat and rescued the two Bangladeshi women. The trial continues.