Maid’s fall leads police to prostitution gang

Speaking from her hospital bed after the fall, the 30-year-old Bangladeshi maid told the police that she tried, in vain, to dangle down from the window by supporting herself on the building pipes, before falling and injuring herself.

She claimed that she was locked inside the flat and forced to work in prostitution.

A police lieutenant said that they were informed about the woman’s accident on October 6 last year and it was discovered that she had been forced, by several men, into the flesh trade. Two days later the police tracked down the main suspect in Naif, identified as 29-year-old Bangladeshi, A.A. jobless.

He admitted that he brought the maid from Sharjah to a flat in Naif where he held her against her will and had forced sex with her. He denied having forced her into prostitution. He then sold her to an accomplice, also an unemployed Bangladeshi, 24, identified as S.R., for Dh1000. The accomplice then gave her to a third man to work as a prostitute for him after imprisoning her in another flat.

When the police showed the maid a picture of A.A., she confirmed that he was the man that brought her to Dubai and she claimed that he raped her and coerced her to have paid sex with men.

The maid said that she arrived into the country less than two years ago through the Dubai International Airport and was taken to Fujairah to work for an Emirati sponsor.

She worked for him for about one year and five months but she decided to run away due to alleged bad treatment.

An Ethiopian maid, in the same house, gave her the number of A.A. who ‘would help her abscond’.

A.A. fooled her into believing that he would find her a job at a supermarket, but instead he took her to the bus stop in Sharjah, and from there to his flat in Deira. There, he told her that she would work in prostitution and he assaulted her and raped her twice. He also locked her inside the flat and took her mobile phone.

When she said that she did not want to work in prostitution, A.A. beat her with a belt.

A.A. and S.R. were charged in the Court of First Instance with human trafficking by deceiving the victim with a job offer and forcing her into prostitution under coercion and intimidation. They are also accused of locking her up.

Three other men, all jobless and from Bangladesh, with ages ranging from 26 to 32, are charged with aiding and abetting A.A. and S.R. in the human trafficking charge.

mary@khaleejtimes.com