Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I don't play Slave City

Just a few short comments as I haven’t had a great deal of free time in the last few days to read or blog much but this piece in the Jerusalem Post caught my eye. I gather anti-semitism is more than a little entrenched in all levels of government in UAE, and according to this US State Department’s Annual Trafficking in Persons Report (dated June 2005) slavery seems to be alive and well in the UAE as well. Furthermore, the US State Department has listed the UAE as a Tier 3 offender country, and I quote from the 2005 annual report on The Trafficking in Persons, page 219.
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 criminializes 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 investigage, prosecute, and convict those responsible for trafficking these children to the U.A.E.

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.

All of which should make all of us a tad suspicious on how exactly Dubai Ports World manages to keep its operating and administrative costs in order and cost efficient.

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