Dubai clamps down on prostitution: 240 arrested

DUBAI: In an attempt to clampdown on the prostitution racket in the UAE, police carried out raids in which nearly 250 people were arrested.
    
Those arrested include 170 women, who are all from East Asia, on charges of being sex workers and 12 pimps. Scores of customers were also held in the raids.
    
The raids were conducted in 22 locations and 247 people suspected of being involved in the flesh trade racket have been arrested, Lieutenant-General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, said here on Tuesday.
    
Dubai police sources said the raids will continue as part of efforts to check human trafficking. In the past, several cases of Indian women forcibly inducted into trafficking had come to light.
     
He said Dubai Police had received a tip-off that a well organised gang was running a flesh trade racket from a number of villas and flats here.
    
"It is important in the light of the activities being carried out by these networks to show there are crackdowns and there are efforts by police," he was quoted as saying in Gulf News.
    
"With the new law to combat human trafficking, we started following up these networks and cases have been referred to the public prosecution," he added.