Maid ‘coaxed to run away then sold as prostitute’

DUBAI // Two workers persuaded a maid to abscond from her sponsor before they forced her into prostitution, a court has heard.

“I arrived 18 months ago and I recall that last year, one of the two workers called me and asked me about my salary, then told me other women work and make much more money per hour,” said the 21-year-old maid, from Bangladesh.

After being persuaded by the Bangladeshi defendants, 28 and 22, she absconded and was taken to a flat in International City, where she met two other Bangladeshi women who told her she would be working in prostitution, as they were.

“I refused to do so for about 10 days but then I was beaten into it and worked for about three months before I was arrested in a car with a man they had arranged,” she said.

A lieutenant said that police had been tipped off to one of the Bangladeshis after he sold a woman for Dh2,800.

“The defendant was arrested in a sting operation last year after an undercover policeman posed as a buyer.”

Police then raided the brothel where the victim was kept and five women were found there. The two men denied forcing the woman, telling the court that it was consensual.

They denied a charge of human trafficking at Dubai Criminal Court. The next hearing will be on May 4.