Based on the United Arab Emirates Federal Decree Law no. 24 of 2023 on Combating Human Trafficking, human trafficking is the act of selling, offering for sale or purchase, promising to sell or purchase, soliciting, employing, recruiting, transferring, deporting, harboring, receiving or delivering one or more persons, whether within the UAE or across the national border of the UAE, where such actions are executed through means involving threat, use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or giving or receiving payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, all of such for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation, within the context of human trafficking, takes various forms, such as sexual exploitation, engaging others in prostitution, servitude, forced labor, organ trafficking, coerced service, enslavement, mendicancy and quasi-slavery practices.
A victim of human trafficking is defined as any person materially or morally impacted by the aforementioned acts. In cases involving a child (a person under 18 years of age) or an incompetent person, they are considered victims of human trafficking even if none of the means mentioned above are used.
The victim’s consent is disregarded in any form of human trafficking where any of the means provided above are employed (eg. deception, threat, etc). In cases where the victim is a child or is incompetent, the consent of the father or custodian (as the case may be) is also disregarded.
Examples of cases that could be classified as human trafficking include:
- If deception was used in the recruitment process (where the victim was not told the truth about the nature of the work when initially contacted by traffickers).
- If there was no deception but the victim had no other choice due to the complete control of the traffickers (even if the victim knew the nature of the work and did not show any resistance).
- If a child was exploited by traffickers for commercial sexual exploitation (prostitution or any other forms of physical exploitation) for the purpose of financial gain or labor.
- If the victim was subjected to any form of exploitation in order to obtain money or other benefits for the traffickers without being able to refuse such action.
It is necessary to note that the official classification of human trafficking victims is made by law enforcement and legal authorities, such as the police, prosecution or courts.