DESERT FANTASIES - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 137

This has nothing to do with the cultural differences of an Islamic nation. Tourists are
told in advance that the UAE prohibits public displays of affection and all illegal drugs,
puts severe restrictions on drinking alcohol and on desecration of their faith. Tourists have
heard the stories of random application of these laws leading to a year in prison for con-
sensual sex between unmarried couples or for questioning the supremacy of the Prophet.
And yet in bars and clubs, hotels and restaurants, foreigners can indulge in just about
anything as long as they keep it private. Drunken, rowdy nights with young foreign pros-
titutes, drugs that slipped through the radar—the over-the-top nightlife of foreigners in
Dubai has been described in glossy magazines around the world, with irony, wonderment
and scorn. Hotel concierges, restaurant maîtres d'hôtel, locals and fellow tourists take new
arrivals aside and clue them in on how to get around the public restrictions. The advice:
take a taxi home if they have had even one drink, and go to bars and clubs like the York or
the Cyclone to find the newest prostitutes.
Prostitution is illegal in the UAE, but beautiful women prostitutes are plentiful in
Dubai, especially if you can afford thousands of dollars for a night and bottles of Dom
Perignon champagne. It is part of the emirate's attraction. Business travelers expect to have
a wide range of choice among women, and occasionally men, for hire. Many, if not most,
of these young women were forced into prostitution, just as the young women in Cambod-
ia and Thailand. But in Dubai they have been brought from foreign countries by gangs
of human traffickers. The stories of these enslaved young women are as heartbreaking as
those I encountered in Cambodia. And given the country's visa policies requiring employ-
er sponsorships, the government clearly approves of this modern form of slavery and en-
ables the business.
Sex tourism has become an integral element of the twenty-first-century global industry
and Dubai's tourism constitutes no exception. Getting away from it all now includes the
possibility of paying for sex with a stranger for kicks, diversion, or something darker. An
estimated 26 million young women and men are trafficked every year to and from every
continent to be placed in servitude as sex workers or laborers. As one of the most labor-in-
tensive industries, tourism has profited mightily from the growing business in human traf-
ficking. None of this is hidden. In the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. State
Department said that the UAE was a “destination for men and women, predominately
from South and Southeast Asia, who are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution.”
The tourists and visitors don't seem to mind. A local businessman told me that in 2008
the big news was the deportation of 5,000 Filipina prostitutes to make way for an equal
number of young Russian women, adjusting to the changing tastes of men visiting Dubai.
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