Police in Dubai have rescued four Bangladeshi girls, who were forced into prostitution, from a nightclub, reports local media.
The girls aged between 16 and 17 years were brought into oil-rich country to work as dancers and prostitutes at a nightclub at Al Muraqabbat in the eastern Dubai’s Deira area, says the Gulf News.
The victims used passports with an older age to enter the country. One 17-year-old victim said she agreed to come to Dubai to help support her family at home, according to the report.
A man arranged her passport and paid her money to arrive in the country before she was taken to a house with other girls.
“I agreed to work as a dancer because my family is poor and needed money,” the victim was quoted by Gulf News. “Four days after arriving in the country, they took us to the nightclub and told us that we will work as dancers. They asked me to have illegal affairs with three customers per month.”
The victim confirmed that the nightclub’s manager was the one running the operation.
In March this year, Dubai police were first alerted to a teenager working as a dancer in a hotel nightclub who looked underage, prompting the raid.
Police later raided the nightclub and arrested 19 women along with five others aged between 20 to 39 years from the nightclub.
“All the women were working as dancers and prostitutes,” Gulf News quoted a police officer saying.
Four of them were under the age of 18, whom the English daily claimed to be Bangladeshi nationals.
The victims have now been referred to a Women and Children’s Shelter in Dubai while rest of the detainees produced to a Dubai court, according to the police officer, who wished to go unnamed.
“The defendants brought the victims using passports with an older age to enter the country,” the law enforcer told Gulf News.