UAE Human Trafficking; Sexual Exploitation of Women

Human Rights Watch has praised a decision by the Philippines government that could ban domestic workers to three Gulf countries (UAE, Kuwait, & Qatar) and urged other labour exporting countries to follow suit.


The US-based watchdog said it remained concerned about the treatment of domestic workers in the GCC states and called for other governments to step up measures to better protect their nationals working abroad.

“Treatment of migrant domestic workers is a problem throughout the Gulf… It’s very encouraging that the Philippines would be considering such a move, it is steps like this that are essential in order to improve the situation for domestic workers generally,” Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, told Arabian Business.

“Other labour sending countries should be taking the same kinds of measures or certainly conducting the same kinds of investigations, and having the same kind of vigilance on the ground through the embassies and consulates as the Philippines does,” he added.

The United Arab Emirates [UAE] is one of the biggest destinations for men and women, predominantly from South and Southeast Asia, trafficked for the purposes of labor and commercial-sexual exploitation. Migrant workers, who comprise more than 90 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce, are recruited from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, China, and the Philippines. Women from some of these countries travel willingly to work as domestic servants or administrative staff, but most are subjected to conditions indicative of forced labor, including unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, or physical or sexual abuse.

Legally, once a foreign female domestic worker enters her employer's house, she is totally under his/her control, since the employer is usually her visa sponsor. Even today, United Arab Emirates labour laws do not recognize domestics as part of the labour force. The employer bears total responsibility for his/her domestic workers and has total control over them.

The immigration regulations governing the status of domestic workers and the social practices towards foreign female domestic worker in the United Arab Emirates enslave them to their employers until the duration of their contract ends.

A significant portion of the foreign female workers in UAE as well as in other Arab countries are forced to offer sex to the employer, as well as many of them are even sold to the private brothels or sex rackets by the recruiting agents or pimps.