Two female traffickers who tricked four young Rakhine girls into working at a beauty parlor in Dubai and then traded the girls to Iraq and Saudi Arabia , are now facing charges following their arrest.
U Tin Htoo Aung, the chairperson of the Arakan National Network, an organization assisting trafficked Rakhine women, reported that the two women were charged under Section 26 of the Law on Foreign Employment at the Mingaladon Township Court in Yangon Region following their arrest. "After the case was opened against the two, the trial commenced on July 20th, with the mother of one of the trafficked young women present in court on behalf of her daughter,” he told Narinjara.
The two currently facing trial, along with a woman trafficker named Ma Khaing Than Aye, conspired to sell four young Rakhine women, aged between 22 and 26, to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, after deceiving the victims with the false promise of job opportunities in a Dubai beauty parlor, U Tin Htoo Aung explained.
The four deceived and trafficked women who hailed from Sittwe, Ponnagyun, Mrauk-U, and Rathedaung townships in Rakhine State. On May 7th, the traffickers transported them from Yangon to Dubai, after which three of the women were sent to Iraq and one to Saudi Arabia.
On June 21st, a young woman who was trafficked to Iraq managed to contact her family, and upon hearing about the ordeal she went through, her mother promptly filed a case at the Sittwe Township Police Station.
According to a lawyer assisting the plaintiff, the two suspects were arrested, and their case was subsequently transferred from Sittwe to Mingaladon Township Court in Yangon.
"The accused were initially charged in Sittwe but later transferred to Yangon. In other words, suspects were typically taken to the court of the township where they were arrested”, prosecutor U Kyaw Soe Naing explained.
U Tin Htoo Aung mentioned that, as the current section under which the charges have been filed allows the suspects to be eligible for bail, the plaintiffs are seeking advice from legal experts to possibly include the anti-trafficking section to strengthen the case.
Every year, numerous Myanmar women, including those from Rakhine ethnicity, seek employment opportunities in Middle Eastern countries due to the limited job options in their own country, making them susceptible targets for smugglers.
According to the testimonies of women who have experienced such ordeals, some unfortunate migrant women have faced arbitrary coercion, beatings, sexual violence, and starvation by their employers, while those responsible for transporting them in such situations are left without any assistance or resolution, often being ignored.
