UAE winning battle against trafficking

The country has made 'dramatic strides' against sex trafficking but has been criticised for sometimes sending victims to jail or deporting them.

DUBAI // The UAE has made "dramatic" strides against sex trafficking, but needs to do more to curb labour abuses, a top US state department official has said.

It followed a call in his department's annual report for the country to be more active in investigating and prosecuting unscrupulous recruitment agents and abusive employers.

For its part, the UAE says it is implementing a plan to combat forced labour and human trafficking, and is in the process of amending its anti-trafficking laws.

Luis CdeBaca, the ambassador-at-large from the US Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, praised the country's "very positive and dramatic approach to sex trafficking in the last couple of years", noting the number of prosecutions had jumped from 20 to 60 in a couple of years as "a result of political will and good structures".

"We encouraged there be increased police and prosecution attention paid to the problem of labour trafficking," he said after an official visit to the UAE where he met with the foreign, labour and interior officials.

"We think that's a journey the UAE would be good to take ... we would hate to see that all of the resources are so focused on prostitution that someone who is being abused in a different sector goes unprotected."

He said domestic and construction workers were most vulnerable to labour abuse.

The annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report ranks 184 countries in different tiers based on their anti-trafficking efforts.

This year's report, issued in June, again put the UAE in the second tier, denoting that it does not fully meet America's anti-trafficking standards.

Two years ago the UAE was upgraded from the tier two watch list - denoting potential demotion to tier three - in recognition of the progress it had made.

The report noted that Dubai had set up a special court to hear human trafficking cases, and opened two new shelters for victims.

However, it criticised the government's inability to recognise people forced into labour as trafficked victims. It also found victims of trafficking may have been jailed, fined or deported from the Emirates.

The UAE needed to do more to prevent sex tourism by Emiratis, saying it was important for the country to "police its citizens" no matter where they travel, he said. The report criticised the country for failing to reduce the demand for prostitution within its borders, or to curb child sex tourism by UAE nationals.

He also called for legal reforms and an overhaul of the sponsorship system.

Government officials, however, said they were committed to dealing with all forms of exploitation, including labour trafficking.

Dr Saeed Al Ghufli, the coordinator of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, said protection and assistance for victims was improving each year, and that the UAE was making "steady progress" on the issue.

The Ministry of Labour had "approved a work plan to combat forced labour and human trafficking", he said.

An amendment to its anti-trafficking law that would "emphasise the protection and repatriation of victims, thus bringing the law more in line with the Palermo Protocol" is with the Government for consideration.

"The UAE welcomes direct discussion and collaboration with other countries and international organisations that share the vision of stemming the tide of human trafficking," he added.

The Indian mission said that even as the UAE was taking steps to protect workers, India had also, as a labour-supplying nation, tightened its laws and clamped down on recruitment agents.

As a result, said MK Lokesh, the Indian ambassador, the number of complaints from Indian workers had fallen.