Tricked and Trapped: Human Trafficking in the Middle East, ‎pdf 4.1 MB

to provide sexual services. Most of the accused are Asians, in fact, who
enable prostitution and sell pornographic materials.” 93 A Nepalese migrant
community leader in Kuwait confirmed the existence of such informal
networks, saying: “We know of three to four women who were caught up
in a prostitution ring run by the Bangladeshis.” 94 The Sri Lankan Embassy
in Kuwait also mentioned several cases of forced prostitution involving Sri
Lankan perpetrators. 95 It is also alleged that women already involved in the
sex industry play the role of intermediary, pretending to offer shelter and
assistance when in fact they bring women to brothels. 96 Other anecdotal
sources and press articles also referred to women who were forced to prostitute
themselves by sex brokers. “I met several Ethiopian domestic workers who
had run away from their employers, who were taken by some pimps and
pushed to prostitute themselves in an apartment in Nabaa,” recalled one
employee of a bar in Lebanon. 97
These women are forced into sex work either by outright physical coercion
or, in other cases, by the abuse of their vulnerability. A journal article on the
migration of Ethiopian women domestic workers to the Gulf explained that
domestic workers escaping from exploitative and abusive working conditions
“find shelter with other women, who live together in small rented rooms,
and take on jobs as ‘freelancers’/working as live-out domestic workers,
brewing and selling illicit liquor, or engaging in sex work. Their lack of legal
status makes them vulnerable to greater exploitation if they are detected, as
they risk blackmail, imprisonment, and deportation.” 98 These underground
prostitution rings involve both victims coerced into commercial sex work
and women who voluntarily sell their services to make additional income.
It is altogether unsurprising that such establishments exist, given that, in
addition to the local demand, there are in these countries large numbers of
male migrant workers in their prime years for sexual activity, who are away
from their families for years at a time and who are therefore unable to fulfil
their natural sex drive by legitimate means. As a result, there is a large and
persistent demand thay cannot simply be suppressed by punitive measures
against those who work in underground prostitution rings.
93
Interview with an official from the Kuwait Lawyers Association, Kuwait,
28 Mar. 2012.
94
Interview with an official from the Non-Resident Nepali Association, Kuwait,
30 Mar. 2012.
95
Interview with an official from the Embassy of Sri Lanka, Kuwait, 27 Mar. 2012.
96
SCEME: Karamatuna: An investigation into the sex trafficking of Iraqi women and girls
(London, 2011), pp. 13–14.
97
Interview with a journalist, Lebanon, 25 Apr., 2012.
98
Fernandez: “Cheap and disposable?”, p. 255.
72