Trafficked to Dubai or the UAE? How to get help getting home
If you went to Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or anywhere else in the UAE for a job, and now your passport has been taken, you are told you owe a “debt”, and you are being made to have sex for money, you have been trafficked. It is not your fault. You can get home without your passport. The first step is to contact someone who will keep you out of trouble while the papers are sorted: Stop Trafficking Africa at [email protected], or one of the shelters listed below.
I wrote this page from what we learned bringing Nigerian women home from Dubai and Sharjah. Some of them were sold a job as a chef or in a supermarket. Some knew they would be selling sex and were enslaved anyway. All of them were held by a debt and a missing passport. The way home was the same for each.
First, your safety
If the person controlling you checks your phone, read this page in a private browser window, or clear your history afterwards. The “Leave this site” button at the top of every page takes you straight to another website and removes this page from the back button.
One woman we helped got out after four years by hiding a dress and a phone in a bag of rubbish she had been sent to take outside. She contacted us from the street.
Why we ask you not to go to the police first
This is the advice that surprises people most. In the UAE, women who sell sex can face prosecution, and a woman without a valid visa can be arrested. The Nigerian Consulate will often tell a woman who has lost her passport to report it stolen at a police station, and that is where the risk lies.
When we repatriated women in 2020, our aim throughout was to keep them out of the police system, where they would more than likely have been treated as criminals. Khaleej Times reported one such case: a visitor jailed in Dubai for working as a prostitute. So speak to us or to a shelter first. They can tell you what is safe in your situation before you walk into any office.
Who can help you in the UAE
These are the organisations on our resources page for Nigerian women trafficked to Dubai.
Stop Trafficking Africa
Email [email protected] with your contact details. If you want us to phone you, tell us when and how to ask for you, so that we know we are speaking to you and that you are safe to talk. Tell us only what you are comfortable sharing.
EWA’A shelters
The EWA’A shelters give safe refuge and support to victims of human trafficking across the Emirates, including Dubai.
- Hotline: 800 7283
- Telephone: +971 2 558 4812
- Email: [email protected]
Dubai Foundation for Women and Children (DFWAC)
A non-profit shelter that takes in women trafficked to the UAE.
- Telephone: +971 4 606 0300
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: dfwac.ae
The Nigerian Consulate in Dubai
- Telephone: +971 58 693 5266
- Email: [email protected]
- Open Sunday to Thursday, 9am to 2pm
Be patient. In 2020 it took us more than 30 attempts before anyone answered the phone. Once we got through, the staff we dealt with were helpful and compassionate. The address of the Consulate in Dubai and the Embassy in Abu Dhabi is on our page about Nigerian government offices in the UAE.
“They took my passport. How do I get home?”
You do not need your old passport back. Some women never see theirs again. In one case we handled, the passport had been sold to someone else, who used it to travel to the USA.
What you need is an Emergency Travel Certificate from the Nigerian Consulate, which lets you travel home. In our cases, getting one meant dealing with three things.
Your identity
The Consulate has to be sure who you are before it issues the certificate. We worked through each woman’s paperwork with our contacts at the Consulate, and with women who had no passport or visa at all. Tell us what documents you still have, or can get from home, and we will tell you what is needed.
Your visa and any overstay fines
If your visa has expired, there will be overstay fines to pay before you can leave. Overstay fines were one of the costs we paid for women in 2020. You can check whether your visa is still valid on the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship’s visa check.
One trap catches many women: if your visa was issued in Abu Dhabi, visa problems have to be sorted out in Abu Dhabi, even if you are in Dubai. We set out the practical difficulties on our page about what happens when the dream falls apart in Dubai.
A flight and somewhere safe to wait
Without a passport, a visa or money, almost everything is hard. You cannot rent a room, buy a SIM card or collect money someone wires to you. In our casework the women stayed in safe accommodation run by a Nigerian partner in Dubai while their papers were processed. For one woman the paperwork took two months; with the pandemic on top, the whole return took three.
“I can’t pay the debt”
The “debt” is how you are being held. It is not a loan. In the cases we saw, the agent in Nigeria agreed a price for travel, accommodation and visas of between $5,000 and $10,000, and the madam kept the figure in a paper ledger. Fines for “punishments” and visa costs were added to it. Almost nobody ever paid it off, because it was never meant to be paid off.
The UAE government’s own guidance says the employer pays the recruitment costs under UAE labour law. We explain this, and the other warning signs, in fake job offers in Dubai: the warning signs.
If the madam has threatened you or your family with juju or a curse, you are not the first. Women we helped were afraid of it, and so were women who chose to stay. It is a method of control, and the women who left are home with their families.
Money for the flight
Stop Trafficking Africa was crowdfunded by the public in the UK to bring home Nigerian women trafficked to the UAE for sexual exploitation. Our funds for repatriation to Nigeria are for genuine victims of trafficking. Each case is decided on its merits and checked carefully, because we have to be sure we are helping the person we think we are helping.
Over the years donations have paid for flights, overstay fines, accommodation, food, clothes and phones for the women we brought home. If you are reading this from safety and want to help, a donation helps bring someone home.
What happens when you land in Nigeria
The women we repatriated were met in Lagos by the UK-funded Joint Border Task Force, who took their accounts as evidence. They were then taken to NAPTIP, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, for medical screening and counselling at a NAPTIP shelter before going home to their families. NAPTIP has offered some returnees business training and help with accommodation for their first year back. We described how we work with them in liaising with NAPTIP.
It does not always go to plan. One woman was supposed to be met at Abuja airport and nobody came. Plan for that. Have a phone number for family at home, and buy a Nigerian SIM card as soon as you can.
NAPTIP in Nigeria:
- Telephone: +234 703 0000 203
- Email: [email protected]
Coming home is not the end of it. In my experience many women come back carrying shame and fear, and some tell nobody, not even their families. A WhatsApp group helped the women we brought home stay in touch with each other after they went back to their own towns.
If you are worried about someone in the UAE
If your daughter, sister or friend went to the UAE for work and has stopped calling, sounds frightened, or seems to be controlled, contact us with whatever details you have.
All contact details on this page come from our resources page. If a number does not work, email us and we will help you find the right one.
