DUBAI // Two women were lured to the country with promises of jobs then locked up and forced into prostitution, a court heard today.
KE, a 30-year-old tailor from Uzbekistan, told the Criminal Court she arrived in Dubai after speaking with a woman in her home country who promised her a job with a monthly salary of more than US$1,000.
When she arrived in December 2011 she met two other Uzbek women - AD, 48, and NS, 50, - before being taken to an apartment.
"[AD] took my passport and said she would provide me with a new one with a different name, which I refused," said the woman.
A few days later she was taken to another apartment near Abu Hail shopping centre and told she would have to work as a prostitute for at least seven months to repay the cost of her plane ticket.
She said the apartment housed a number of prostitutes and that she was forced to have sex with 15 to 20 men each day until she ran away on January 17.
She said that about 6am while the other occupants of the apartment were asleep she and another woman, DR, tied some bedsheets together and climbed down from the window. She broke her leg in the process, but succeeded in escaping in a taxi and the pair headed to their consulate.
The consulate called an ambulance and notified police.
Her fellow escapee, DR, a 24-year-old also from Uzbekistan, said she was lured into the country on January 6, 2012, after being promised a job, and was taken to the same apartment where the two shared a room.
She said she was forced to have sex with between 20 and 30 men per day and that the money she earned would be handed to another woman in the apartment.
AD and NS were charged with human trafficking. Two other Uzbek women EK, 29, and ET, 20, were charged with prostitution. None of them entered a plea.
The next hearing will be on May 6.
salamir@thenational.ae
