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On 12 June, the world marks ILO World Day Against Child Labour.
One of the fastest growing forms of slavery today is trafficking.
According to the UN, 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.
Among this number are boys, as young as four years old, who continue
to be trafficked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as camel jockeys
despite repeated statements from the Government that this practice
has stopped.
Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest, international human
rights organisation, has photographic evidence and first-hand
testimony from the children themselves taken in 2004, proving
that using children as camel jockeys remains commonplace in Dubai
and other Emirates, despite UAE Government announcements that new
regulations are being enforced. Interviews with the children
and colour
photographs of them training and racing are available.
In July 2002, the UAE Government announced that using children
under-15 and lighter than 45 kilograms to race camels would be banned
from 1 September 2002 and offenders punished. From what Anti-Slavery
International saw and the evidence from organisations in the countries
children are taken from, the abuse is widespread and the UAE Government
is failing to take effective and meaningful action to stop it.
Traffickers are abducting or luring young boys away from their
families in South Asia and Africa with promises of well-paid work,
education and training. In reality they are kept in brutal conditions,
deprived of food and water to keep them light and subjected to hazardous
work; racing at a speeds of 40-50 kilometres per hour.
Using children as camel jockeys has been illegal in the UAE since
1980 under domestic and international legislation. To the best of
our knowledge, no UAE citizen has faced judicial proceedings for
this offence.
Despite this, in February 2004, the US State Department Country
Report on Human Rights Practices refers to the UAE Government
implementing and enforcing the ban. And, in June 2003, the US Trafficking
in Persons Report commended the UAE's efforts against trafficking,
including child camel jockeys, raising it from Tier 3, reserved
for the greatest offenders, to Tier 1, comprising countries whose
governments are prohibiting and punishing acts of trafficking.
"The Government of the UAE needs to enforce the laws that
protect children from this abuse and address the demand that fuels
child trafficking. It needs to introduce regular, unannounced inspections
to identify, release and rehabilitate any child currently being
used as a camel jockey and prosecute anyone responsible for trafficking
or employing underage jockeys", Mary Cunneen Director of
Anti-Slavery International says.
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