Abu Dhabi: For just BD20 salary rise, an Asian maid decided to flee from her sponsor’s home to work on an hour-based system.
An Asian woman sold the idea to the housemaid, but she did not know that the pursuit of this small salary rise would land her in a prostitution gang, who forced her to work as a prostitute, while others reap the profits of the transaction.
Acting on a tip-off from an embassy of an Asian country that a maid is detained by a prostitution gang who forced her to work as a prostitute, the police raided the brothel, freed the girl and arrested three suspects.
The victim told the police she was brought in Bahrain to work as a maid by a recruitment agency. She started work and her monthly salary was BD100. Three weeks later, she was introduced to a woman, who persuaded her to run away from her sponsor’s house to work on hour-based system for BD120 a month.
A person drove her from the house of her sponsor to an apartment, where she was introduced to three persons, two women and a man. They asked her to rest for the night and start fresh on the following day as a prostitute.
The maid was shocked, but she was helpless.
For a week, she was detained and clients were brought to the apartment. Every night, she would take scores of men in her room, where she would endure until small hours in the morning.
Eventually, she managed to call her country’s embassy in Bahrain.
The brothel keeper admitted to the police he has been working for a laundry shop in Bahrain for 12 years. Five years ago, he was introduced to a woman, had consensual sex with her and later procured clients for her, he added.
The suspects were charged with human trafficking, kidnapping and running a brothel.
The Bahraini government has cracked down on sex trafficking in recent years. Those convicted of it can face between three and 15 years in prison, fines of up to 10,000 Bahraini dinar and bear the cost of repatriating their victims.
Article 325 of Bahrain’s penal code provides for sentences of between two and seven years for forced prostitution and three to 10 years if the victim is a minor.
In 2019, the country’s interior ministry reported 19 potential cases of trafficking, 16 for sex trafficking and three for forced labour, a drop from the 2018 figure of 31.
The victim was taken to a shelter for medical and psychological care, prosecutors said.
