DUBAI // A five-year sentence against two labourers, who lured five young women into the country with promises of legal jobs but instead forced them into prostitution, has been upheld.
Bangladeshis H A, 32, and 30-year-old J M were convicted at Dubai Criminal Court last November of human trafficking, running a brothel and locking up their five victims.
H A denied a rape charge as prosecutors said he raped three of his victims after physically assaulting them.
The men lured the five women, aged between 17 and 19, from their homeland through another man in Bangladesh, who told them they would get jobs as maids.
After the five arrived on different dates during 2012, they were taken to an old villa in Deira where they were chained, beaten and raped after their passports were taken away from them, records said.
One of the women told prosecutors that on arrival at the villa she saw up to 17 women who told her that they were forced to work in prostitution. When H A said that she would also have to prostitute herself, she refused.
The teenager said H A then stripped her, beat her and took photographs of her before he raped her.
She added that he threatened to show her family at home the pictures of her naked.
Two other women said they were also threatened and raped. One of them said she was raped by H A more than 10 times.
The other victims also testified that they were chained and assaulted. They said they had to give in to H A’s demands and work in prostitution but, in August 2012, one of them took advantage of H A leaving his mobile phone lying next to her to call the police.
The women told police that many of the others who were abused by H A and his accomplice had already left the country.
H A was arrested while trying to escape via the bathroom.
While searching the villa, police found a visit permit issued by Dubai Central Prison, which showed that H A had visited a Bangladeshi woman who is serving a sentence for human trafficking.
The two men will be deported after completing their jail terms.
salamir@thenational.ae
