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riding. Some victims trafficked for
labor exploitation endured harsh living
and working conditions and were
subjected to debt bondage, passport
withholding, and physical and sexual
abuse. The U.A.E. Government does not
collect statistics
 on persons trafficked
into the country, making it difficult to
assess its efforts to combat the
problem. Widely varying reports, mostly
from NGOs, international organizations,
and source countries, estimated the
number of trafficking victims in the U.A.E. to be from a few thousand to tens
of thousands.
Regarding foreign child camel jockeys,
the U.A.E. Government estimated there
were from 1,200 to 2,700 such children
in the U.A.E., while a respected
Pakistani human rights NGO active in the
U.A.E. estimated 5,000 to 6,000. The
U.A.E. Government has taken several
steps that may lead to potentially
positive outcomes, such as requiring
children from source countries to have
their own passports, and collaborating
with UNICEF and source-country
governments to develop a plan for
documenting and safely repatriating all
underage camel jockeys.
The Government of the U.A.E. does not
fully comply with the minimum standards
for the elimination of trafficking and
is not making significant efforts to do
so. Despite sustained engagement from
the U.S. Government, NGOs, and
international organizations over the
last two years, the U.A.E. Government
has failed to take significant action to
address its trafficking problems and to
protect victims.
The U.A.E. Government needs to enact and
enforce a comprehensive trafficking law
that criminalizes all forms of
trafficking and provides for protection
of trafficking victims. The government
should also institute systematic
screening measures to identify
trafficking victims among the thousands
of foreign women arrested and deported
each year for involvement in
prostitution. The government should take
immediate steps to rescue and care for
the many foreign children trafficked to
the U.A.E. as camel jockeys,
repatriating them through responsible
channels if appropriate. The government
should also take much stronger steps to
investigate, prosecute, and convict
those responsible for trafficking these
children to the U.A.E.
Prosecution
During the reporting period, the U.A.E.
made minimal efforts to prosecute
traffickers. Despite the ongoing
trafficking and exploitation of
thousands of children as camel jockeys
and women in sexual servitude, the
government made insufficient efforts in
2004 to criminally prosecute and punish
anyone behind these forms of
trafficking. The U.A.E. Government
announced in April 2005 that it would
soon enact a new law banning underage
camel jockeys. Currently, the U.A.E.
does not have a comprehensive
anti-trafficking law. The government can
use various laws under its criminal
codes to prosecute trafficking-related
crimes effectively, but there have been
only a few such cases prosecuted. In
2004, U.A.E. officials declared that the
2002 Presidential Decree against the
exploitation of children as camel
jockeys was legally unenforceable —
effectively asserting that the U.A.E.
had no legal mechanism to address this
serious crime. The U.A.E.’s new law,
when enacted and implemented, is
expected to enable enforcement of the
Decree.
In 2004, according to an NGO,
immigration authorities worked with
source-country NGOs, embassies, and
consulates to rescue and repatriate 400
trafficked former camel jockeys to
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sudan. The
government transferred the
anti-trafficking portfolio from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the
Ministry of Interior — a ministry with a
law enforcement authority — and created
a designated anti-child trafficking unit
within the Ministry of Interior. In
December 2004, the government opened a
rehabilitation center for the care of
rescued child camel jockeys, and from
December 2004 to April 2005, rescued
approximately 68 children and
repatriated 43 of them to their
countries of origin, primarily Pakistan.
However, the number of rescued and
repatriated children through these
efforts is insignificant compared to the
huge number (estimated in the thousands)
openly exploited at camel racetracks
throughout the country. Furthermore,
there is no evidence that the government
investigated, prosecuted, and punished
anyone for trafficking, abusing, and
exploiting children as camel jockeys.
The U.A.E. Government’s efforts to
prosecute crimes relating to trafficking
for commercial sexual exploitation were
equally disappointing. Despite a few
arrests and prosecutions of those
involved in such crimes, including
travel and employment agencies that
reportedly facilitate the trafficking of
victims, U.A.E. law enforcement efforts
during the year focused largely on the
arrest, incarceration, and deportation
of over 5,000 foreign women in
prostitution, many of whom are likely
trafficking victims. The police do not
make concerted, proactive efforts to
distinguish trafficking victims among
women arrested for prostitution and
illegal immigration; as a result,
victims are punished with incarceration
and deportation. Although the U.A.E.
criminalized the withholding of
employees’ passports by employers, there
is inconsistent enforcement of the law,
and the practice continues to be
widespread in both the private and
public sectors. The government claims to
have taken civil and administrative
actions against hundred of employers who
abused or failed to pay their domestic
employees. The government does not keep
data on trafficking and related
investigations, arrests, and
prosecutions.
Protection
The U.A.E. Government’s efforts to
provide protection and assistance to
victims of trafficking were minimal
during the reporting period. Its efforts
to protect child camel jockeys were
limited to the opening of one shelter in
Abu Dhabi in December 2004 and the
repatriation of approximately 443
rescued child camel jockeys. Given the
estimated thousands of boys being openly
exploited in the country, the total
number rescued and repatriated so far is
small. Following increased public
attention to the camel jockey situation
and rescue efforts by the government, an
international NGO alleged that some
camel owners are hiding a large number
of child victims in the desert and in
neighboring countries. However, there is
no evidence the government has taken
action to investigate and prevent this
crime. The government is also working
with the Governments of Bangladesh and
Pakistan to establish U.A.E.
Government-funded shelters in those
countries to receive and care for
rescued and repatriated children.
The government’s efforts to protect and
assist victims of trafficking for sexual
and labor exploitation have also been
minimal. U.A.E. police continue to
arrest and punish trafficking victims
along with others engaged in
prostitution, unless the victims
identify themselves as having been
trafficked. The U.A.E.’s numerous
foreign domestic and agricultural
workers are excluded from protection
under
U.A.E. labor laws and, as such, many are
vulnerable to serious exploitation that
constitutes involuntary servitude, a
severe form of trafficking. The
government does not have a shelter
facility for foreign workers who are
victims of involuntary servitude, but
relies on housing provided by embassies,
source-country NGOs, and concerned U.A.E.
residents. The U.A.E. Government states
it offers housing, work permits,
counseling, medical care, and other
necessary support for those labor
victims who agree to testify against
their traffickers. However, few victims
reportedly benefited from these
government-provided services. In 2004,
the Dubai Police Human Rights Department
reported assisting such victims in 18
trafficking cases. The Dubai Police also
assigns Victim Assistant Coordinators to
police stations to advise victims of
their rights, encourage victims to
testify, and provide other essential
services to victims.
Prevention
The U.A.E. slightly increased its
trafficking prevention efforts over the
past year, particularly efforts to
prevent the trafficking of children to
work as camel jockeys. Prevention
measures reportedly included closer
screening of visa applications by U.A.E.
embassies in source countries,
distributing informational material
directly to newly arrived foreign
workers, supplying brochures to
source-country embassies and consulates
to warn potential victims, conducting
specific anti-trafficking training for
police and various government personnel,
and conducting training for immigration
inspectors in document fraud detection
methods.
In March and April 2005, the U.A.E.
Government announced a variety of
measures to begin to address the
country’s serious trafficking problems
more effectively. The government
announced in April that a new law,
similar to the Presidential ban already
in place but not enforced since
September 2002, would be enacted soon.
The law reportedly would ban jockeys
under age 16 from participating in camel
races and stipulate that a jockey’s
weight must exceed 45 kilograms (99
pounds). At the time of this writing,
the law had not been enacted.
The U.A.E. Government also announced in
April new procedures to facilitate the
repatriation of those underage foreign
camel jockeys already in the country and
to prevent new ones from entering.
Beginning on March 31, 2005, camel farm
owners would have two months to
repatriate all underage foreign camel
jockeys working on their farms. After
this grace period, the government would
begin levying fines against anyone
harboring underage camel jockeys. The
government stated in March 2005 that it
would enforce a new requirement that all
source-country expatriate residents,
including children, have their own
passports.
The government reportedly instructed
ports of entry to ensure that no
underage children enter the country for
the purpose of being used as a camel
jockey. It also stated that a medical
committee would begin conducting tests
on all jockeys as part of the pre-race
handicapping. The government reported
that it had identified adequate shelters
in Pakistan and Bangladesh to assist
underage camel jockeys who had been
repatriated to those countries, and that
it would provide financing to source
country organizations to handle such
repatriations. From October 2002 to
January 2005, the U.A.E., through the
use of iris recognition technology and
document fraud detecting methods,
prevented 26,000 potential illegal
immigrants from coming into the country,
some of whom were likely trafficking
victims.
THE FACTS ABOUT CHILD CAMEL
JOCKEYS
10 Smart Reasons to STOP Port
Deal!
Updated: May. 12, 2005
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