UAE court upholds Pinay's sentence for sex trafficking

A Filipina was cleared while another had her sentence upheld over a human trafficking case in the United Arab Emirates last weekend. In clearing the Filipina housewife, 52, the Court of Appeal quashed her five-year-imprisonment conviction, according to a report published Tuesday on news site Khaleej Times. The court, however, upheld the five-year-imprisonment conviction and deportation order against another Filipina, a 31-year-old visitor, on trial for the same charge. The Court of First Instance had found the two Filipinas guilty last May of forcing two Filipina victims into prostitution. Defense lawyer Mohammed Al Suwaidi, who represented the housewife, earlier told the court his client had leased the apartment and held back the passports of the alleged victims to force them into paying for their the rent. But authorities had suspected the apartment was being run as a brothel. Court records showed the two defendants lured the two women aged 27 and 28 to go to the UAE to become waitresses. However, they then seized their official documents and forced them to have sex with men. “We were suffering and had to have lots of customers a day," the victims said during the investigation, adding they had sex for money for 11 days. One day, one of victims escaped from the apartment of a drunken Egyptian pleasure seeker. Police raided the defendants’ place on April 8 last year. One of the accused was nabbed in Sharjah. — JE, GMA News