Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Palm, and the Marina. This urban planning contrasts sharply with the narrow winding
streets of Old Dubai in the north, which is home to the neighborhoods of Deira, Bur
Dubai, and the Bastakiya (or old fishing village) quarter. When making the drive from
south to north on Sheikh Zayed road (the main highway connecting most of the seven
Emirates), drivers can witness the spaces between buildings narrow incrementally the
further north one moves.
After six months of living and working on the streets of Bur Dubai, where she faced
regular abuse from clients, police, and sometimes others in the business, Ziya found
group mobilized to provide housing assistance for Ziya while they worked to sort out
her legal paperwork so that she could procure a new working visa. When I last spoke
with her in September of 2009 she had found a job as a nanny for a family in the same
building as her temporary home. She laughed as she said, “I am happy to make money
now like this to send home to my family. Next time I go home to Ethiopia, I am happy
and proud.”
The first time I met Maryam, a high end call girl from Tehran, she was also living in
a modern high rise skyscraper overlooking Dubai Marina. By the time I left Dubai in
2009, however, Maryam was sleeping in a half built metro terminal in Bur Dubai (the
metrosysteminDubaiwasunderconstruction duringthesummerof2009andhadbeen
slated to open the following fall) and trying her best to avoid the authorities, who had a
warrant for her arrest. “I guess I'm a rags to riches story, but in reverse,” Maryam told
me when I talked with her on the phone shortly before my departure from the field that
summer. “Remember when we first met? I was making thousands of dollars a night, liv-
ing the good life. Now look at me. I can't stay here (in Dubai), I am in debt because of
my legal cases, and I can't even go back to Iran. Worse yet, no one wants to help me
here,” she lamented. I had initially heard about Maryam through her friends and col-
leaguesinIran,whileconductingfieldresearchforabookonsexualityinpostrevolution
Iran. I had met her friends in Tehran and followed them to Dubai in 2004, where they
would make repeated visits to engage in transactional sex.
Women from Iran and Morocco belong to the two highest paid nationalities of sex
workers and in highest demand in Dubai, consequently these women earned up to
12,000 Dhs (about $3,000) per night. Many of them lived in luxurious apartments paid
for by their regular clientele, while others financed their own accommodations in more
expensive parts of town with their high salaries. Maryam used the semiprivate space of
the Internet to attract her customers, and up until 2009 had a steady flow of clients that
allowed her to make more money than most of the businessmen I met while in Dubai.
She and her friends enjoyed the relative safety provided by the discretionary nature of
