Dubai: Victims of human trafficking in Dubai will soon have a dedicated phone number to seek assistance and report any threats that they may face, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai Police Chief, announced on Monday at a conference that seeks to find solutions to the problem.
On the first day of the conference titled ‘Media and Human Trafficking' jointly organised by Dubai Police and the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children, experts said human trafficking was a crime thriving across borders with the situation expected to get worse in the coming years.
The collective effort of security bodies and the media was critical in combating the evil, experts addressing the forum said.
"The media must tackle this issue in a balanced way and refrain from exaggeration to avoid creating panic in the UAE, since these crimes happen in all societies," said Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking.
"One of the most important achievements of the committee has been weeding out wrong information about human trafficking in the UAE, such as the baseless accusation that there are around 1,000 victims of human trafficking in the country, as alleged by some international reports," he added.
Lt Gen Dahi said the new dedicated phone number to report crimes of human trafficking would soon be announced in Dubai. "Since the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children was established, we have had the intention of setting up a hotline, but this was postponed in the hope that we would have a unified number all over the UAE. Unfortunately, I don't see this number anywhere, so we are going ahead with dedicating a line for callers in Dubai, which will happen very soon."
