Is Dubai all about sex life? Dubai has a large expatriate population and received 19 million visitors in 2019. According to the French daily Le Monde, prostitution, which is officially prohibited but de facto tolerated, has made Dubai a popular destination for sex tourism in the Gulf.
Even after the financial crisis of 2008, which compelled the emirate to expand its service industries with tourism at the forefront, Dubai’s bet on its spectacular integration into globalization has been particularly successful.
Is Dubai all about sex life?
Alcohol consumption is still not permitted in public areas, but it is permitted in hotels, bars, restaurants, and nightclubs with a specific licence. Such locations are typically where sex workers approach prospective clients.
Thus, one can employ an escort girl’s services while visiting the emirate.
Chinese, Filipino and Indian prostitutes are viewed in a tacit hierarchy as being less valuable than their Central Asian counterparts, who are still viewed as being less valuable than European women, whether Russian, Ukrainian, or Western.
Arab partners continue to be the most uncommon and in high demand due to their rarity in the workplace.
Some estimate that there are 45,000 active prostitutes in Dubai.
Of course, knowing this number precisely is impossible because it is based on a complex system in which Emirati nationals, who are authorized to “sponsor” the entry of a certain number of foreigners on residence visas, give these sponsorship rights to intermediaries without necessarily knowing the true activity of the future “immigrants.”
Despite its 2016 reform, the residence visa system still allows for this type of manipulation, and the networks that have been dismantled tend to focus on the lower end of the prostitution market.
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The fact that transactions are frequently completed without the use of intermediaries lends credence to the illusion of a lack of pimping, even though it is impossible to provide such services in Dubai without solid protection.
In 2017, the UN published the testimony of a “sex slave” from Uzbekistan who, after 18 months of nightmare in Dubai, preferred to be arrested by Emirati police and deported.
The revelations of victims of this type of trafficking, lured to Dubai by false promises of domestic employment, have recently been broadcast in Bangladesh.
The signing of a peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last September was quickly followed by the establishment of direct air links between the two countries.
More than 100,000 Israeli tourists have already visited Dubai, where the demonstrative hospitality they have received contrasts with the “cold peace” reserved for Israeli visitors in Jordan and Egypt until now.
However, the Israeli press has also published several scandalous articles about various forms of sex tourism. The daily newspaper “Yedioth Aharonoth” described real prostitute catalogs, with transactions taking place around a large hotel pool.
The website “Mako” was interested in the reconversion of Israeli mafiosi in “escort agencies” in Dubai, while reproducing pimping exchanges in screenshots.
The Israeli daily “Haaretz” even ran an article titled “Visiting Dubai is like standing on the verge of a gang rape.”
Defenders of Israeli-Emirati normalization reacted angrily and downplayed the significance of the reported testimonies, which they deemed unrepresentative.
In any case, it appears that sex tourism will continue to grow in Dubai.
Despite encouraging remarks, the US State Department’s annual report on human trafficking has concluded that “the government of the United Arab Emirates does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of sex trafficking” for several years.
