Flesh trade racket

DUBAI: Two Chinese women on Wednesday were charged with trafficking three Thais — two women and a man — and forcing them into offering sexual favours to male clients at a massage centre.

The suspects denied the charges before the Criminal Court. S.A., 40, the first suspect, was charged with terrorising and forcing the victims into the flesh trade, while the second suspect, G.S., 38, was accused of aiding and abetting S.A. A third suspect, Y.Y., who is S.A.'s son, remains at large. Police arrested the suspects on August 18, 2010, in their apartment, after a victim escaped and reported the crime to the police.

The victims, T.S., 32, and S.K., 31, were lured into working as masseuses with the suspects in Dubai.

T.S. said she landed in Dubai on February 4, 2010. S.A. and her son Y.Y. met her at the airport and confiscated her passport and travel documents. T.S. worked as a masseuse at a massage centre for women for a month.

After that, T.S. said, S.A. asked her to work at a private massage centre on the top floor of the same building, claiming there was a shortage of staff there. T.S. agreed to work there thinking it was a ladies-only massage centre. But she was wrong as all clients were men. T.S. said G.S. managed both massage centres. S.K., the second complainant, corroborated the story saying that she was forced to do sexual acts ever since she arrived in Dubai on June 7, 2010.

Whenever the victims refused to provide sexual service, customers would complain to S.A. who, in turn, would threaten and yell at them. Prosecutors said S.A. and Y.Y. virtually imprisoned the victims and forced them to work seven days a week, 16 hours a day and threatened to withhold their salaries if they did not comply.

The victims said they were threatened by S.A. and G.S. whenever they turned away male customers looking for sexual favours.

S.A. is also alleged to have abused a third victim B.F., 22, who said he was forced to offer sexual favours to male customers for a "happy ending" after a massage. B.F. told prosecutors he started working at the centre three months before police arrested the suspects.

T.S. told prosecutors that she completed a course at a massage institute in Thailand and was approached by a woman who offered her a job in Dubai for Dh1,800 per month. She added that she took the job to support her son, now seven. T.S. escaped with the help of an Egyptian customer and hitchhiked to the police station, where she filed a report against the suspects.