Minister: dishonest recruiting is human trafficking

ABU DHABI // Recruitment agencies that lure workers to the country under false pretences must be dealt with as human traffickers, a senior government official said yesterday. While foreign recruiters can be prosecuted only in co-operation with the country from which they operate, they often have local agents in the UAE who need to be identified and tried, said Dr Anwar Gargash, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who heads the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking.

Some employment agencies demand hefty upfront fees from workers, assuring them that they will be able to repay them through their wages. On arrival their salaries are lower than promised, making it impossible to repay the loans. Employers also often illegally take and retain workers' passports; others are lured under the promise of employment but instead forced into prostitution. Speaking on the sidelines of a symposium on protecting human trafficking victims, Dr Gargash said tackling the "labour end" of human trafficking would always be a challenge but that addressing it was "extremely important".

Prosecutors and police were being asked to keep an eye on the problem and identify labour violations as human trafficking crimes, he said. "Recruitment agencies and offices that defraud workers and bring them under false pretence resort to what is essentially human trafficking." "We are trying to identify unscrupulous recruiters here and to try to tackle that under the human trafficking law," he said.

A specialised police human trafficking unit of more than 20 officers has been set up to identify such crimes. They have received training both in the UAE and overseas. The Government has pledged to take a four-pronged approach to human trafficking. It says it will redraw the law on human trafficking, which was introduced in 2006 and includes a minimum five-year sentence for anyone found guilty of such a crime.

It has also promised to make sure that the law is enforced, give victims better protection, and work on co-operating with other countries and international bodies to stamp out the trade. "It's work in progress," Dr Gargash said. "Naturally there are many challenges that will always be there." It is part of the mandate of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking to look into the law and make sure it is tightened, he said.

"With any law you implement you notice here and there that there are details that need to be tightened. Part of the mandate is to find out if there are loopholes." Dr Gargash said that the law would be provide more protection to witnesses. The legislation would also provide a legal basis to accommodate victims in shelters. The two-day symposium, which was organised by the Ministry of Interior and began on Tuesday, produced a paper that included 10 recommendations.

Delegates called for sections of the criminal procedure code to be revised to "guarantee the rights of victims of crimes in general, and victims of human trafficking in particular". They called for legal staff to be trained to deal with human trafficking issues, and said special units should be set up in the ministries and relevant authorities. Public awareness should be increased and more training should be given to investigative units.

The UAE also needs to sign further bilateral and multilateral agreements to strengthen international co-operation on the issue, the paper said. Addressing delegates at the symposium, Dr Gargash acknowledged that human trafficking victims needed to be given better support. "With the strategy one part is lacking, which is human support, but now we are taking steps," he said. A shelter to help rehabilitate and repatriate human trafficking victims was opened in Abu Dhabi last year.

Dubai has a similar shelter and more are planned for the other emirates. The centres provide counselling and help victims through the legislative process. Dr Gargash said there need to be more communication between UAE shelters and those overseas, so that when victims are repatriated authorities know that they will be properly cared for on their return. Shelters must also recruit more workers from the countries where victims often originate from, such as Armenia and Russia, to help break down communication barriers, he said.

@Email:lmorris@thenational.ae