DUBAI // Two men kidnapped a 12-year-old boy, assaulted him with a taser gun and then raped him.
On Sunday, Emiratis B J, 46 and S A, 18, were convicted of kidnap, rape, assault and issuing threats to kill at the criminal court.
B J was additionally found guilty of consuming alcohol without a licence.
BJ was sentenced to five years in jail and fined Dh2,000 while SA was handed a three-year sentence.
The court heard that on December 14 last year, the boy’s mother sent him to the grocery shop at 8am but by 9am the father began to worry that his son had not returned.
“I went along with my other children to look for him when one of my kids saw his bicycle discarded by the entrance of a villa in the same neighbourhood,” said the father.
He knocked on the door and S A answered informing him that the boy had gone with B J to the grocery shop.
Then at midday, the father spotted his son driving a car with B J next to him.
“When they stopped I asked B J why would he allow the kid to drive, he told me my son insisted to learn driving. When I got near him, I knew he was drunk and smelt strongly of alcohol,” said the father.
Later that day, the father was told by his wife that the boy was taken to a deserted area and raped by the two men.
“I asked her why hadn’t she told me earlier and she said she was scared,” he said.
“On our way home from the police station, my son told me he was stunned with a taser gun, slapped and beaten with a cable before the two men took turns raping him,” said the father.
The boy said he was forced to take drugs by B J, then was told his family would be killed and his house burnt down if he told anyone about the rape.
salamir@thenational.ae
The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
Mountain%20Boy
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Zainab%20Shaheen%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Naser%20Al%20Messabi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The biog
Date of birth: 27 May, 1995
Place of birth: Dubai, UAE
Status: Single
School: Al Ittihad private school in Al Mamzar
University: University of Sharjah
Degree: Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Hobby: I enjoy travelling a lot, not just for fun, but I like to cross things off my bucket list and the map and do something there like a 'green project'.
