An underground network of suspected sex traffickers has taken refuge in the wealthy Gulf nation. The U.S. State Department says efforts to identify and protect victims have fallen short.
On a pleasure boat cruising Gulf waters near Dubai’s glittering skyline, a Nigerian woman dressed in a white dress and gold jewelry nodded and swayed as a gathering sang “Happy Birthday” to her.
Videos of Christy Gold’s 45th birthday party were posted in May 2022 on an Instagram account that showcases her glamorous lifestyle, months after Gold fled Nigeria, where she was facing sex trafficking charges.
Gold — whose name appears in court records as Christiana Jacob Uadiale — was a ringleader in a criminal network that lured African women to Dubai and forced them into prostitution in brothels, backstreets, bars, hotels and dance clubs, according to six Nigerian government anti-trafficking officials, a British human rights activist who has tracked her operation and five women who say they were trafficked and exploited by her.
Three of the women said in interviews that Gold told them that if they didn’t do as they were told, they’d be killed and dumped in the desert. Those who didn’t make enough money for her were taken to a torture room in an apartment in Dubai, where Gold’s brother starved them, flogged them and shoved hot chili paste into their vaginas, according to three anti-trafficking officials and five women who provided detailed accounts in interviews and court statements.
“They beat the hell out of me,” one of the women said. “The suffering was too much.”
In a statement to the court after she was charged, Gold denied that she and her brother were sex traffickers. “I am not involved in human trafficking and I do not have any girls in Dubai working for me as a prostitute,” she said.
Gold remains a fugitive from justice — part of what anti-trafficking activists and officials say is a thriving underground of suspected sex traffickers who have taken refuge in the United Arab Emirates, a Gulf nation known for its wealth, futuristic skyscrapers and what rights groups say is a poor record on protecting foreign workers and basic freedoms.
The UAE is a major destination for sex trafficking, where African women are forced into prostitution by illicit networks operating within the country, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Reuters has found.
Emirati authorities do little to protect these women, according to anti-trafficking activists, Nigerian authorities and interviews with trafficked women.
This story is based on interviews with 25 African women, mostly from Nigeria, who described being lured to the UAE by Gold or other alleged traffickers, as well as dozens of interviews with humanitarian workers, investigators, Nigerian government officials and others with knowledge of sex trafficking in the Emirates. Their accounts are corroborated by court records and case files from Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency.
Human traffickers keep African women in sexual slavery by playing on their financial desperation and creating webs of manipulation and coercion. They subject them to threats and violence. They ensnare them in crushing debts, often totaling $10,000 to $15,000 — huge sums for women from poor families. And, in many cases, they exploit traditional African spiritual beliefs to make victims believe that they have no choice but to do what the traffickers tell them.
This investigation is part of a reporting collaboration led by ICIJ, Trafficking Inc., which is examining sex trafficking and labor trafficking in many parts of the globe. Media partners in the project include Reuters, NBC News, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and other news outlets in multiple countries.
Gold did not respond to questions for this story. In her statement to the court in Nigeria, Gold said she had helped Nigerian women and men move to the UAE by subletting space to them in an apartment she owned in Dubai.
“I even go as far as advising them like a mother so they too can make it in Dubai,” she said. But she told the court, “I cannot tell what these people did for a living in Dubai.”
In a written reply supplied by the Dubai government’s media affairs office, the emirate’s police agency said claims that Gold had engaged in the sex trafficking of African women in Dubai are “false and have absolutely no basis in fact.” The statement said Gold had “entered and exited Dubai legally and was not implicated in any illegal activities.”
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said any suggestion the UAE “tolerates human trafficking or that it has little regard to the victims of this heinous crime is utterly false.” Such allegations, the ministry said in response to questions, were “baseless and without foundation.”
The ministry said the UAE’s laws on sex trafficking carry heavy fines and prison sentences. A report the ministry shared said the UAE had referred 20 human trafficking cases to the courts in 2021, most involving sexual exploitation.
The UAE has also been involved in international police operations against trafficking networks, the ministry said.
Human rights activists and Nigerian authorities say the UAE doesn’t live up to its anti-trafficking commitments.
Fatima Waziri-Azi, director general of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, said there has been “no cooperation” when NAPTIP has reached out to Emirati authorities for help hunting down traffickers working out of the UAE.
Angus Thomas, a British activist who founded an anti-trafficking education organization based in Ghana, said UAE authorities were uncooperative when he urged them to help African women get away from Gold and her associates.
“I wrote, I phoned, I emailed, asking them to help me get the girls, sending addresses of apartments,” he said. “And I heard nothing.”
Credits: This article was originally published on 12 June 2023 by ICIJ on https://www.icij.org/investigations/trafficking-inc/how-torture-deception-and-inaction-underpin-the-uaes-thriving-sex-trafficking-industry/
