Dubai: Recruitment agencies were briefed on their role in spreading awareness among domestic workers about human trafficking during a seminar organised by the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children (DFWAC)
The seminar, titled “Together for the Prevention of Human Trafficking”, discussed how human trafficking can be prevented among the most vulnerable groups, especially domestic workers.
Afra Al Basti, Director General of the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children, said the seminar was organised to highlight the foundation’s contribution in combating this heinous crime.
The seminar was attended by the officials of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, the Department of Economic Development in Dubai, and the Ministry of Interior.
During different sessions of the seminar, participants focused on fundamental rights of domestic workers and how to protect them from human trafficking.
“As the UAE leadership has introduced strict laws to fight human trafficking in the country, it doubles the responsibilities of the entities concerned to coordinate with each other to raise community awareness about this crime and how to prevent it,” said Al Basti.
She added the UAE’s values and principles of upholding human dignity of every person without any discrimination and promoting the values of tolerance and brotherhood, are the keys to combat this crime.
Elshafa Bakri, senior researcher at DFWAC, said the foundation’s initiative this year focused on educating recruitment agencies about the crime. She said the foundation gave more than 27,500 awareness leaflets to 65 offices of recruitment agencies in Dubai, which will be distributed among the domestic workers.
The seminar also held an open discussion with the recruitment agencies about the cases of human trafficking and the impact of visit and tourist visas in increase of such cases. It also discussed ways to receive complaints of domestic workers and recruitment agencies and how to deal with these, The discussion also focused on measures being taken by various government departments to stop human trafficking incidents and domestic workers abuse.
