DUBAI // An Indian man is accused of trafficking a 15-year-old girl who was desperate to get money for life-saving surgery for her father.
The 36-year-old defendant is also accused at Dubai Criminal Court of running a prostitution business.
Prosecutors said police were tipped-off about him offering a 15-year-old girl for sex to prospective customers.
Officers started an investigation and, on July 1, the defendant was arrested at a hotel room in Naif, where a policeman posed as a customer.
During questioning, the Pakistani teenager said her mother was dead and her father needed open-heart surgery at cost of more than two million rupees (Dh70,300). Her cousin who lives in Dubai advised her to come and work in the country to make that kind of money.
She said her cousin arranged with the defendant and another man, who is at large, to forge a passport making the girl’s age 23, instead of 15.
The teen arrived in January and was told she would work as a waitress but was convinced to prostitute herself to make more money and help treat her father.
She said her cousin was willingly working in prostitution and the defendant and another man were running the business and collecting the money from customers.
During questioning, prosecutors said the Indian man confessed to luring the girl to the UAE but said his accomplice who remains at large was the mastermind.
The man said: “He [the accomplice] offered me to provide him with customers in return for Dh50 for each customer but I didn’t bring this girl and I didn’t know she was so young.”
He said his role was showing pictures of women to customers and, when a customer picks one, he would call the other man and tell him the request before arranging for a meeting place.
In court on Wednesday he denied charges. “I’m just an employee at the hotel where I was arrested,” he told judges.
The next hearing is on October 26.
salamir@thenational.ae
