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

workers being detained and deported, even if the prostitution act has itself
been forced. 184 An official from the Dubai police said that sex workers were
loath to contact the police, as “perpetrators often tell their victims to not
contact us and that because prostitution is illegal here, the police will not help
but will imprison them”. 185 A staff member of the NGO Dar Al Amal further
explained that if the women are “forced to do it [prostitute themselves], they
would never report it to the authorities because if they do, they will be
deported”. 186 One woman, who had formerly been a sex worker and later
became a cleaner at a bar in Lebanon, told the researchers that “most of the
time they are threatened by the employer that ‘if you don’t do everything I
want I will denounce you to the police’.” 187
Box 3.17. One case of deportation
“There is another Russian girl who worked at this club. The employer found
out that she was pregnant. This is not accepted at all in this country to get
pregnant outside wedlock. Then the employer and many other people started
telling her to take a tablet to abort the baby. Eventually, she took an abortion
pill and had a very severe bleeding and was admitted to the hospital.
The authorities then knew about her pregnancy and talked to the employer,
who denied any responsibility. They deported her immediately as any kind of
problem is immediately deported. We can’t afford to have problems related to
a woman in this country. It is a very sensitive issue.”
Interview with nightclub security guard, Dubai, UAE, 29 January 2012.
184
No ILO instruments or official documents formally exclude sex workers from
any ILO Convention or Recommendation, but nor has this occupational group ever
explicitly been mentioned either. They are nevertheless implicitly covered by the ILO
Recommendation concerning HIV and AIDS and the World of Work, 2010 (No. 200).
The ILO Committee of Experts has noted that the provisions of the Recommendation
calling for protection against discrimination on the basis of real or perceived HIV status
also aim to provide protection against discrimination based on stereotyping. Referring
to paragraph 3 (c) of the Recommendation, the Committee of Experts noted that
this discrimination on the basis of stereotypes would include sex workers. For further
reading on the subject, see ILO: Giving globalization a human face: General survey on
the fundamental Conventions concerning rights at work in light of the ILO Declaration
on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, 2008, Report III(1B), International Labour
Conference, 101st Session, Geneva, 2012 (Geneva), para. 811, note 2048.
185
Interview with an official from the trafficking unit of the Dubai Police, UAE,
30 Jan. 2012.
186
Interview with an official from Dar Al Amal, Lebanon, 14 Dec. 2012.
187
Interview with a cleaner in a bar, Lebanon, 3 May 2012.
93