No, I'm not making it up. But it is a 3 year-old report. Perhaps they've got the camel jockey issue under control.
Trafficking in women and children continued to be a problem. Beginning September 1, the Government implemented and enforced a ban against the use of juvenile camel jockeys, a number of whom were trafficked to the country from South Asia.
from: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2002 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor March 31, 2003
Isn't this UAE's own business? If they want to give jobs to these women and children, isn't that good?
Besides, human rights organizations have proven many times that they don't really care about humans at all and instead they are political tools for negative propaganda.
Posted by: EAC | Friday, February 24, 2006 at 05:59 PM
Quite a number of these children had been sold by poor families to become jockeys from the age of three, when they have been put up on camels and just raced with the child hanging on for dear life. The kids have been terrified, and there have been quite a few deaths and serious injuries. It is pure exploitation. Now, some of the camel owners are using a kind of mechanical device instead of putting a child on because of the outrage that has been expressed regarding this cruelty.
Posted by: annie | Friday, February 24, 2006 at 08:03 PM
My boyfriend has students that are interested in the camel jockey issue. We don't want to discourage that rare flicker of human empathy. Does anyone know if there is still a problem with camel jokeys in the UAE and if there are any organizations that are trying to help the situation that I can refer the student to?
Posted by: Toni | Wednesday, January 03, 2007 at 02:49 PM