Four Bangladeshi men were jailed five years each by the Court of First Instance in Dubai after they were caught trying to sell a runaway Indonesian domestic worker via WhatsApp.
Two of the defendants, aged 25 and 28, who were accused of trying to sell an absconding domestic worker for 5,500 dirhams (US$1,498), were given five years in jail on Thursday after being convicted of human trafficking, Khaleej Times reported.
Two other Bangladeshi men, aged 36 and 31, were given the same punishment for helping with the crime.
The four men, arrested by police in Al Muraqqabat on February 5, were also found guilty of running a prostitution den and bringing men to have sex with the victim. Three of them had illicit consensual sex with the victim.
The four men were ordered by the court to pay 100,000 dirhams in compensation to the victim.
The victim, a 41-year-old divorced mother with three children, told the court that she was lured to run away from her sponsor’s house on January 20, 2018 by a woman, who promised her a part-time job with a monthly wage of 1,500 dirhams. She was then forced to work in the sex den.
Police later received a report from an informant, who was approached by the defendants when they were trying to sell the woman.
Read: Two men charged with ‘selling’ Indonesian maid in Dubai