Sabah Mahmoud.
Anyone committing the crime of Zina, whether a woman or man in the UAE, is considered a criminal.
Emirati.
I can’t have a baby if I’m not married, it’s very difficult here.
Monica hand on her belly.
Monica. I knew I was pregnant
I was scared they’d send me to jail.
Sharla. Islamically they have every right, every right, if this is your law this is your law.
Airport shots.
Khait
They look at how every Filippino woman walks to see if they’re pregnant.
Laily.
Reconstruction shots. Leila ironing. I was scared. I couldn’t tell anyone.
Ross Ann with child.
Laily wiping her tears.
Khait blurred, sitting down.
Ross Ann by lake.
Monica green T-shirt, hand on belly.
These women all got pregnant outside marriage in the UAE.
This is their story, told for the first time in this BBC Arabic investigation.
TITLE
PREGNANT AND IN CHAINS
In the United Arab Emirates.
Caption: Dubai.
Big Wide shots of the beach in Dubai, people on beach at dusk.
EMIRATI WOMAN
Face, veiled.
Hands, to be blurred slightly.
Emirati woman profile.
Emirati woman WS. Hands.
(That’s because we have no evidence that the flogging sentences are enforced. Source: Rothna Begum at Human Rights Watch and a lawyer in Dubai.)
“Hessa”, which is not this woman’s real name, is Emirati.
We are protecting her identity.
She is pregnant.
Because she’s not married, her pregnancy is evidence of a crime: sex outside marriage.
If she’s found out, she could be sentenced to jail and a flogging.
Her story began when she fell in love.
Emirati woman. I have known a man for six years. We had a very strong love-bond.
Emirati woman He convinced me that he will marry his cousin first and take me as his second wife.
Emirati woman When I told him I was carrying his child he got very upset. Then he hit me. He said ‘I will tell your family you’re dishonourable’.
I didn’t expect him to leave me. Or that he would tell me he doesn’t want me. I realised he doesn’t love me.
Dubai Beach shots. Present tense used.
She has decided to have an illegal abortion.
Emirati woman.
WS CUs, Hands.
Doctor with surgical instruments.
I can’t have a baby without being married. It’s very difficult here. A woman can’t have a child with someone she loves.
If my family found out they’d slaughter me.
So I have to have an abortion.
Sabah Mahmoud. Hessa isn’t just facing a cultural taboo. She has also broken the law.
Sabah Mahmoud worked as a lawyer in the UAE for 15 years.
He is familiar with the country’s Penal Code.
Sabah Mahmoud.
At 04:16’ need to cover the jump cut in a beautiful way.
The constitution states that Islam is the official religion of the nation and that Sharia is the source of laws in the country.
There is no way anyone can oppose it.
People in parks. Paul O’Driscoll footage.
1. With the sentencing of women for pregnancy outside wedlock and ‘zinna’ crimes, the UAE are in breach of International Conventions on Human Rights which they themselves have signed.
2. The ‘zinna’ offences (for which women go to prison if they are pregnant) are in breach of following principles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The Right to Family Relations, and the Right to Privacy.
3. The UAE are also in breach of the convention against torture because part of the sentences the women get are lashes.
The Committee on Discrimination against Women, an International Human Rights body, say that zinna offences discriminate unfairly against women because they get punished more frequently than the men.
These laws (and similar laws) are applied in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen, as well as Iran, Afghanistan and South Sudan, Morocco.
From Rothna Begum, Women’s Rights Researcher at HRW
Zina offenses that criminalize consensual sexual relations violate international human rights law.
Zina and other “moral” offenses violate international human rights law, as do the punishments associated with them.
Zina offenses are often applied in a way that discriminates on the basis of sex: women are disproportionately impacted due to prevailing
social attitudes and because pregnancy serves as “evidence” of the offense. The UAE is in breach of the CEDAW convention, to which it acceded in 2004.
International human rights law also requires
decriminalization of consensual adult sexual relationships to protect a variety of human rights, including the rights to privacy,
nondiscrimination, physical autonomy, and health.
Sentences of flogging and stoning constitute a breach of the UAE’s obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, which the UAE acceded to in July 2012. United Nations human rights expert bodies and special rapporteurs have called for the repeal of zina laws.
The laws that make consensual sex illegal for unmarried couples apply to everyone in the UAE.
Many human rights organisations argue that this contravenes international human rights laws which the UAE has signed.
Top shots Dubai.
Migrants. People in parks.
Paul O’Driscoll footage.
Foreign Migrants. Filippinos in the UAE, Paul O’Driscoll footage.
The BBC has found that the UAE’s laws on sex outside marriage affect women more than men.
Foreign migrant workers make up 90% of the population.
Under the law, if a woman is not married, pregnancy is irrefutable proof that illegal sex took place.
So it is overwhelmingly vulnerable migrant women who face imprisonment and flogging sentences for breaking laws that affect the most intimate aspects of their lives.
Most are too ashamed and fearful to speak out.
In an investigation lasting more than a year BBC Arabic tracked down migrant women from Asia and Africa who fled the UAE because of these laws. We are protecting their identity.
Khait in shop.
Khait is one of them.
Khait
Dubai shopping mall. People, escalators.
Khait She lives in the Philippines.
In 2013 Khait worked in one of Dubai’s shopping malls, alongside a Filippino colleague.
Khait
Khait at home, WS, CU profile.
He became attracted to me and began courting me. We became a couple and a year went by.
Khait. Although it is illegal, it is common for unmarried foreign couples to live together in the UAE.
Khait CU
Khait on sofa at home.
In the villas police come and knock on the doors.
They peek inside to see if we’re a couple.
They ask for a marriage contract.
If they find out you are a couple living together in ‘sin’, they arrest you and put you in jail.
Buildings from BBC footage.
Ultrasound blue and black.
Khait and her lover lived together happily.
And after about a year, Khait became pregnant.
She knew it would soon be difficult to for her to hide it from the authorities.
Khait.
Khait inside home. Needs to be blurred.
This is the Law in the UAE (article 274 of the Penal Code).
Sabah Mahmoud, activists in UAE, and Lola Lopez, who runs Babies behind Bars.
Sabah Mahmoud:
This is a part and parcel of the penal code, because it provides in article 274 any person who becomes aware of a crime that is committed has to report it to the authorities, if he does not report it to the authorities, then… the punishment is to be a fine, is only a fine.
WS Dubai from water. We planned to get married and have a baby.
Even if we got married in Dubai, to get the birth certificate they calculate the months.
Even if the wedding was before the birth they still put you in jail.
Ultrasound, BBC News archive footage from Jupiter.
Khait walks out into the light.
Khait knew that if she stayed she could face a prison sentence, so she decided to leave the country.
Airport shots from BBC News archive, Jupiter.
WS airport. Abstract airport shots. Waiting lounges.
This is the Law in the UAE (article 274 of the Penal Code).
Sabah Mahmoud, activists in UAE, and Lola Lopez, who runs Babies behind Bars.
Sabah Mahmoud:
This is a part and parcel of the penal code, because it provides in article 274 any person who becomes aware of a crime that is committed has to report it to the authorities, if he does not report it to the authorities, then… the punishment is to be a fine, is only a fine.
Blurry airport shots. Top shot with metal palm tree.
Waiting lounge. Shots from BBC News archive, Jupiter.
Top shot, airport, people walking, shopping.
She had to hide her pregnancy.
The BBC has learned that airport officials are on the lookout for illegal pregnancies.
And that they detain unmarried pregnant women trying to leave the country, as the law requires.
Khait CU
Abstract airport shot.
Airport shots. Pan around. 08:36 check the pan.
People in airport.
(Airport shots from BBC News archive Jupiter.)
I used a binder to hide my belly so it didn’t show.
So if someone at the airport spotted me, it wouldn’t be obvious I was pregnant.
I was careful, I had to walk naturally.
Airport hall.
Airport shots from BBC News archive Jupiter. They look very grey, could we put some colour and contrast into them?
Airplanes on runway.
Airport lounges, pan up.
Khait checked in at Dubai international Airport for her flight back to the Philippines.
Airport shots from BBC News archive, Jupiter.
Airport shots, waiting to board.
Khait
Palm trees in airport.
This is the Law in the UAE (Article 274 of the Penal Code. Ref: Sabah Mahmoud, Paul O’Driscoll, activists in UAE, and Lola Lopez, who runs Babies behind Bars.
Sabah Mahmoud:
This is a part and parcel of the penal code, because it provides in article 274 any person who becomes aware of a crime that is committed has to report it to the authorities, if he does not report it to the authorities, then… the punishment is to be a fine, is only a fine.
Airplane on runway.
Runway. Plane takes off.
I was nervous and felt like crying.
And at the immigration desk they asked me if I was pregnant.
I said ‘No Ma’m I’m not’.
I denied it, as I was wearing loose clothing.
But they stared at me, as they do when they suspect Filippinas are pregnant.
They asked me ‘-Why are you going home? Why was your visa cancelled?’
I said that my parents wanted me to go home.
Khait kisses her baby at home.
Khait with her baby.
Actuality of Khait in cafe.
Khait did get home, and gave birth to a baby girl.
She now works in an internet café to support herself and her baby.
The BBC has approached the UAE authorities for comment about its practices but has had no reply.
Khait knows that if she decides to return to Dubai she could face prosecution for breaking the country’s Zina laws.
Sabah Mahmoud
Caption:
Middle East Legal Consultant
Now what is Zina? Zina is a relationship between a man and a woman outside the law.
Sabah Mahmoud
Islamic Sharia is based on two things. The first main source is the Holy Quran. The Quran has verses that punish the act of Zina. The two verses are Al Nour and Isra.
And many Sayings of the Prophet, Praise Be Upon Him, which refer to Zina.
Mosque shots from Donal Boyd footage.
Zina is therefore a sin in Islam.
Sabah Mahmoud
Shots of Mosque, Donal Boyd archive. Any illegal relationship between a woman and a man is punishable by flogging, and with time the laws changed and developed, and it became flogging and a period in prison.
And when it comes to foreigners, if they are found in a sinful illegal relationshipof zina, the punishment is also deportation.
Sunset shot BBC news archive.
Estimate from Ross Ann who was in prison, Diana Hamade a Family Lawyer who sees them lining up when she is in Court, and Sean O’Driscoll, reporter who investigated story and went to Abu Dhabi courts, has contacts inside prison, and Lola Lopez, who runs Babies Behind Bars, a charity that helps women in prisons to raise money for their tickets home.
Philippino women on street dusk shots, Paul O’Driscoll archive.
There are no official figures available, but the BBC has learned that hundreds of women are imprisoned every year.
The scale and impact of these laws are rarely reported.
Domestic servants from poor countries are especially vulnerable to the UAE’s zina laws because they are also ruled by what is known as the kafala system.
Workers on street at dusk walking around seen from back, Paul O’Driscoll archive.
Fred Scott reconstruction shots. Feet, WS feet.
Inside house. Silhouette walking across hallway.
Ross Ann washing dishes. Hands washing dishes, etc.
Workers must be sponsored by an employer.
They are then contracted to that employer exclusively and cannot leave without permission.
While this is not the stated purpose of these laws, the kafala system and zina laws can work in tandem to entrap migrant women who fall pregnant.
Ross Ann washing dishes.
WS Ross Ann in kitchen shots.
Marie lives on the outskirts of Manila. We have changed her name to protect her identity. She went to Dubai as a Domestic Helper.
She left her employer without permission. That’s a crime under the kafala system.
Ross Ann in the Philippines in the kitchen sweeping the floor.
Ross Ann park shots. Ross Ann in the park.
She found another job and continued to work, illegally.
After four years she met a local man and they started a relationship.
Ross Ann in the kitchen, interview shot, face in the dark. We meet every day, he likes me and also I feel that I like him also.
Ross Ann’s lap, hands and feet.
And he became my boyfriend. Then I stop my job. Because he told me to stop work because he will support me.
He told me ‘I will marry you, we will live here in Dubai’.
Ross Ann in the park, trees.
Walking, feet.
Ross Ann in the park seen from the back, WS, walking. Park shots.
Sunshine through trees.
Feet.
Ross Ann in park seen from the back. Marie had now broken the UAE’s zina laws.
Still unmarried, she got pregnant and had a daughter. The following year she had a second daughter.
She is one of hundreds of women who hide their illegal children from the UAE’s authorities.
After some hesitation, the man and his family welcomed Marie and the two illegitimate children into their home -until a friend of the family intervened.
Ross Ann
Profile shot from interview.
Interview MS
Ross Ann in park in the Philippines.
Every night he is coming there, he is a high person in Dubai, and this guy told to my mother-in-law ‘You know this is illegal. Why you accept this person in your house? How if the police catch you? ‘Not only you, but all of your family’. So they scared.
Ross Ann park shots in the Philippines. MS.
WS park.
Small children playing on the floor.
Ross Ann in Park WS with sunshine on water. Silhouette shots. Light through trees.
In fear of the Law, the family decided that Marie and her two daughters should return home to the Philippines.
She still hoped that one day her children’s father would marry her.
But she had a problem.
She didn’t have her passport.
It was still in the hands of her first employer.
The confiscation of passports by employers is standard practice in the UAE, though it is against the law.
The only way Marie could leave the country was to hand herself over to the authorities.
Ross Ann WS silhouette in park with sunshine on water.
Ross Ann profile shot. Will have to be blurred.
Ross Ann’s children, dark shots inside. Baby shoes on floor. I feel so bad I feel so sad, I think they will put me in jail a long time.
But because I love this guy, I told him OK I will do it.
He was crying at that time. But we don’t have choice.
Ross Ann in park walking.
BBC News archive, Jupiter.
Sunset shots again.
Marie was put on trial.
Like the vast majority of Domestic Workers who have to face the Law, she couldn’t afford a lawyer.
The judge questioned her about her life.
Ross Ann interview
Ross Ann in park. The Judge asked me a lot of things about the father of my daughters, where he is.
Of course I keep secret. I told them he run away and I don’t know where he is. I saved them, because I don’t want to put him in trouble.
Youtube footage, Al Aweer jail.
Women in pink reading Koran, guard standing by. The Judge found Marie guilty and sentenced her to 9 months in jail.
Her two young daughters were detained with her, as is customary in the UAE.
This officially sanctioned footage shows women in the Al Aweer jail.
It gives no idea of the conditions Marie says she found herself in.
Al Aweer prison footage, women in pink walking, and children playing.
Ross Ann
Shots from the prison.
Ross Ann profile shot.
Ross Ann.
Women in pink. They are giving weekly one can of milk and 25 pieces of pampers. But it’s not enough. Even water you need to buy.
We are three to four persons inside that room and we have babies. There’s a mattress and we sleep on one small mattress.
Ross Ann in park with children.
Marie served a sentence with her two daughters for breaking the country’s zina laws.
Ross Ann in park with children. MS children in her arms.
These are enshrined/written into/ in the Penal Code.
Article 356 of the UAE’s Penal Code specifies the punishments that should be applied to people who break these laws.
Sabah Mahmoud
Article 356 states the punishment for the crime of honour abuse. The punishment for the crime of abuse of honour is a prison sentence of at least a year.
Abuse of honour-or indecency is not clearly defined in the Penal Code.
So judges are left to interpret the law.
Rothna Begum is Women’s Rights Researcher at Human Rights Watch in London.
Rothna Begum
Because the UAE authorities have not clarified what they mean by indecency the judges can use their culture and customs and Sharia ultimately to broaden out that definition and convict people for illicit sexual relations or even acts of public affection…
RIGHT 2 REPLY SECTION HERE In the course of this investigation the BBC approached the authorities for an interview with Ministers and officials involved in the application of the zina laws.
Despite repeated requests over many months, they have not responded.
Road shots, Paul O’Driscoll.
High profile case 2013: Norwegian woman Marte Dalelv. She was raped by a colleague, reported it, was sentenced for having extramarital sex and imprisoned. She was freed after an international outcry.
In 2012, a British woman reporting a rape by three Saudi men was fined for alcohol consumption. In 2008, an Australian woman who claimed she was gang-raped at a hotel languished in prison for eight months before receiving a pardon. Two years later, a British woman who went to police after allegedly being raped by a waiter at a hotel where she and her fiancé were staying was taken to court for having extramarital sex, but subsequently released.
“We'd gone for a weekend break in the sun in Dubai because we were in love and it looked like paradise in brochures,” she told The Sun. “It never occurred to us that, as an unmarried couple, we might end up in jail.”
There is a darker side to the enforcement of Zina laws.
PAUSE
Zina laws make all sex outside marriage punishable. This means unmarried women are vulnerable to prosecution when they fall pregnant, even if they have been raped.
Laily in Bangladesh, walking in a park, green dress and veiled.
Reconstruction shots. Laily left her home and family in Bangladesh for a job as a domestic helper in the UAE.
Laily MWS
My boss was a really bad man. There were girls in the house from other foreign places. They all told me that he was a bad man.
Because of this I was very scared all the time.
Three months passed in this way. When nobody was around he asked me why I was so afraid of him. I didn’t reply and used to run away from him. He slapped me or hit me on the head.
Reconstruction shot, ironing, view through doorway.
One day she was alone in the family home when she says her employer assaulted her.
Laily
MWS
I said I would electrocute myself and die if he didn’t leave. I screamed and begged at his feet.
I called him ‘Father’. I said ‘A father cannot do this to his daughter!’
I pushed him, he fell. I bit him. Then he held my feet and both my hands and abused my honour.
Fred Scott reconstruction shots, dark corridor shots.
Laily profile shots,
Laily wide shot. I was scared. I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t know what to do. I avoided seeing my master after the incident.
I couldn’t imagine how a human being could torture another human being like this, it is still beyond me.
Laily wide shot.
After her ordeal, Laily was trapped in her employer’s home.
Under the kafala system she could not leave without his permission.
Reconstruction shots
Monica green, hand on belly shot.
Laily was unable to report the rape, but then her situation got worse.
Ultrasound She began to feel unwell.
Laily
Two months had passed and I had no period. I was terrified, I knew it myself, but was scared to tell anyone.
Laily was pregnant and seriously ill.
Laily
Driving shots.
Hospital shots, corridor with nurses.
My life was finished.
They took me to the doctor.
On the way there I was slapped and asked if I had told anyone. I said that I hadn’t.
Then they did blood tests on me.
Hospital shots, doctor examining ultrasound, pointing.
The hospital doctors examined Laily.
They quickly confirmed that she was pregnant.
Laily Profile WS
Reconstruction shot: Laily in bathroom with headscarf.
Reconstruction, bathroom shot, seated in green.
The pregnancy meant that both Laily and her employer were in danger of prosecution under the country’s zina laws.
At this point her employer sent her back to Bangladesh.
Laily MWS
FIX SUBTITLES
WS Laily outside.
They dropped me at the airport, I just had the clothes I was wearing. They gave me my passport and said ‘you go back home’. At the time I only had what I was wearing. I could not take anything with me. I left everything.
Airplane shot
Leila outside in field in Bangladesh. WS
We have verified Laily’s story through the OKUP (NGO) people who looked after her in Bangladesh, paid for her hospital care and supported her through her ordeal until her death. The case workers in Dhaka know her personally and vouch for the authenticity of her story.
Salman Saeed is a BBC producer in Dhaka. He filmed the interview and verified the story in advance. There is a great deal of detail in her interview.
She did not report the rape, so her employer was never investigated.
Her interview was translated by Manoshi Barua, Head of the BBC’s Bengali Service, and she said Laily sounds sincere and credible. Once Laily was back in Bangladesh she had an abortion.
She never reported the alleged rape.
Leila
Many more women will work in his house.
I hope they will not have the same fate as me.
Laily fixing her scarf, profile shot.
Reconstruction shots Fred Scott shoot. Green figure out of focus through doorway.
It was not the intention of the UAE’s law-makers to trap rape victims with their abusers, according to Legal Consultant Sabah Mahmoud.
Sabah Mahmoud
Silhouette shots.
The general point which is repeated time and again by Emirates’ officials, is that it’s important that justice and equality rule. They will never allow any person to harm a woman or a foreigner. But of course a lady working in a house is in a weak position, her situation is difficult.
If a lady, or a lady working in a house is forced and coerced, then that is a capital crime. She has to report it. But maybe she is in too weak a state to do so.
Calendar shot in Monica’s house.
This is common in the UAE and needs to be highlighted.
But what happens to unmarried pregnant domestic servants who remain trapped by employers who won’t release them until they fulfil their contract under the kafala system?
Monica is from a small remote village in the Philippines.
Like Laily, she had a job as a Domestic Worker in Abu Dhabi.
She says that one day she found herself alone in the house with her employer’s driver.
Monica
Reconstruction cooking shots.
Knife on kitchen surface.
Knife on kitchen surface.
I was in the kitchen cleaning.
He threatened me with the knife and forced himself on me.
He raped me.
There was nothing I could do. Even if I screamed. I was
alone.
Monica CU seated, silent.
Monica did not feel able to report the alleged rape.
She lived in fear, trapped in the house.
To make things worse, she discovered she was pregnant. She could now be punished under the Zina laws.
Monica When I realised I was pregnant I knew they might send me to jail and I was really scared.
.
Reconstruction shots In spite of the alleged rape and the pregnancy, under her contract, Monica still needed her employer’s permission to leave.
Monica When my employer found out I was pregnant I told her what had happened. She said I am going to take you to the police. ‘Do you want that?’ ‘No. I begged her not to. ‘Madam no. Please just send me home.’ She said: ‘Why should I send you home? You haven’t finished your contract.’
Reconstruction shots, cleaning floor.
She was desperate to get out.
Philippines GVs in market, Paul O’Driscoll footage.
She had a secret cellphone hidden in the kitchen.
She used it to call the Philippines.
DZMM archive footage.
Monica
Kaye Dacer in conversation with Monica live on air.
- Monica Hi.
I want to leave but they won’t let me.
DZMM footage. Monica asked for help from a popular radio show. Live on air.
DZMM archive
Kaye-How many months pregnant are you?
I’m almost seven months pregnant.
I haven’t been paid for almost three months.
It’s difficult for me to work any more. I really want to leave but they won’t let me.
Guy-Monica, does your family her in the Philippines know about this?
M-No. They don't know.
Kaye-That's the most painful part of this story, her family does not know about her situation. She has a husband here and he doesn't know about her situation.
GVs Manila. As a result of Monica’s desperate appeal on live radio, the Philippine government intervened.
They put diplomatic pressure on the UAE to let her go home.
Monica/Ana
Goes home I was able to go home because my employer finally gave me a ticket.
Driving shots Philippines,
Driving shots.
Monica, seen from behind, feet, MS from back.
Monica in doorway, profile.
Monica, hands on bellly, green T-shirt.
Monica was seven months pregnant and could have been prosecuted under the zina laws.
But the notoriety of her case meant that the authorities in the UAE allowed her to fly home to the Philippines.
The first person she called when she arrived in Manila was her husband.
Neither he nor her family knew that she had been raped, or that she was pregnant.
Monica
At first my husband could not accept it. He was very angry. He blamed me and said: ‘That’s what you get for wanting to work abroad’. But then he thought about it. He said ‘Come home’. Then my Mama said: ‘-If he can’t accept the child, give the child to me. ‘We will raise him’.
When I told him, he said: ‘-Why do you have to give the child to your mother? Let him be ours’. And he accepted it.
Monica gave birth to a baby boy.
Source: Human Rights Watch.
Workers relaxing in park from Paul O’Driscoll footage.
Sharla Musabih’s house, BBC footage.
Archive Sharla’s house.
There are around 150,000 female migrant domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates.
Hundreds of them fall foul of the zinna laws every year.
Many went to Sharla Musabih for help.
She had turned her house into a shelter for victims of abuse.
Sharla in house. Upsound. This is a room where there are up to three beds.
Some of the women who went to Sharla for help were pregnant Domestic Servants.
Sharla
Sharla at home with people in her garden.
Sharla with girl in room. Seen from the back, Sharla walks out. Well if she comes to me, and she’s pregnant, I get her an examination, and I get her a midwife to come and visit her on a regular basis, and we try to turn a negative into a positive. And then I speak to a lawyer, and he handles it the best way that he can. The problem is if they end up being hauled in by the sponsor, pregnant and being accused of something, the scenario is not so good, usually she’ll go to jail.
Sharla at home. Sharla says she helped up to 3000 women and children between 1991 and 2008.
Sharla and her daughter praying.
Sharla at home with kids in garden. Sharla with her family. Every case of a woman that had been physically abused or raped, or unpaid, I felt it.
I’m American. I came into this religion. And what inspired me was: you have to be responsible for your neighbours.
And the house would be full. And I would just say: ‘Please God please Allah, expand the walls, and I think He did. And I don’t know how, I don’t know how we got 70 women in that house but somehow we did. Somehow every single day there was chicken coming to the door, Somehow there was enough milk, somehow there was enough baby formula, somehow there was enough volunteers, somehow, somehow, somehow.
Road shots.
Sharla in the car.
Sharla CU with phone in car.
After many years of helping women in the UAE, Sharla Musabih was was advised to leave the country.
She now lives in the USA.
Ross Ann by water.
Dub: Add splash sound in water.
with children in park.
Ross Ann with child on lap. Our investigation shows that while the zina laws in the UAE apply to Emiratis and migrant workers alike, the weight of the law falls overwhelmingly on female domestic workers like Marie.
Ross Ann in park.
After nine months in jail, the authorities told Marie that they were ready to release her.
But her hopes were dashed.
Ross Ann MS and profile.
They called me from the office. They told me your case is finished.
If you have ticket right now you can go tomorrow to your country, but if you don’t have plane ticket, you stay here for three months for the free ticket.
Prison footage, women in pink.
African woman with two children from prison archive footage.
Children’s classroom in prison.
Playground in prison.
Women in prison classroom.
Driving shots wide. Motorway.
Airplane takes off. Marie had no money to pay for a plane ticket.
So she and her children had to stay in jail.
Fortunately a local charity heard of her plight and offered to pay for her tickets.
Two weeks later Marie and her two children were able to fly to the Philippines.
Ross Ann with her children, giving milk, torso and back only.
-Did you keep in touch with the father of your children when you were in jail?
-I tried to call him but I cannot contact him, because it’s not working, maybe he changed number, something like that.
Takes child on her lap.
Ross Ann seen from the back holding child.
Alone with kids in park, children’s voices. Out of focus shots. Marie has no family to support her.
She lives alone with her two small daughters.
With children walking up steps in park. It’s not easy. I feel very disappointed.
I was thinking why he did like this to me? He run away from his responsibility.
LETTERS AND EMAILS SENT FROM BBC.
Marie is one of hundreds of women who faced prison with her children for breaking the country’s zina and kafala laws.
The BBC approached the UAE’s authorities for comment on the issues facing women like Marie, but has had no response.
Sharla at window of her house, throwing ball into garden.
Silhouette Filippino woman in shopping mall out of focus.
Sharla Musabih believes that Domestic Workers should be treated more fairly, and that the UAE’s authorities have not grasped the scale of the problem.
Sharla.
Fix jump cut.
We have some amazing amazing authorities in these countries we have some great people some great leaders who are very worldly and open- minded and educated, if they only just understood what the details of this victim’s life were, they would be appalled, and they would say enough is enough. But they don’t’. Why? Because there’s this shshhhhh, aib aib everything is aib. (Aib=Shame)
Big City shots, tower shot from below.
Buildings from BBC archive.
Migrant workers form Paul O’Driscoll. The UAE’s laws on sex and pregnancy outside marriage were codified when the nation was founded in 1971.
They are based on Sharia Law. Many people believe these laws are fair and appropriate.
Sabah Mahmoud. Solving this problem is very hard. This is a country with traditions, a heritage. Sharia is part of its constitution. For the country to now overlook all this is hard to justify to its people. The foreigners have to consider the culture of this country and its heritage.
Migrant workers.
Human Rights Watch document. But Rothna Begum from Human Rights Watch thinks it’s time for these laws to be reformed.
Rothna Begum
They need to decriminalise consensual sexual relations. This would then lift off the possibility that victims could be prosecuted. Then you need to be able to ensure that those who end up as victims are in a situation where they are not vulnerable, you need to be in a situation where the kafala system is reformed so that workers can transfer employers and that they have labour law rights so that they can appeal to courts if anything goes wrong between them and their employer.
Rothna Begum, out of focus microphone.
Road shots, shopping mall shots, men walking, pan up, wide shot, shots from Paul O’Driscoll.
Filippino woman in the water, feet in water, seen from back and side.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and UN Human Rights bodies say that the United Arab Emirates zina laws violate international human rights law.
They say that the UAE is in breach of the International Human Rights Conventions which it has signed.
They say that the laws are a breach of the right to privacy and family relations.
They have called for the repeal of the laws that make sex outside marriage illegal.
Sharla -Oh yeah, it’s an Islamic country, it’s illegal.
It is a challenge. Because Islamically they have every right, every right, if this is your law , this is your law, but at the same time if this is your law and you’re a Muslim and you want things run Islamically, then this is a challenge, then how do you do that? Then how do you do that? You have to draw the line I’m not sure.
Rothna Begum
Ross Ann silhouette seen from back by water.
Big wide shot.
The problem is that every single year tens of thousands of women are migrating. They are leaving behind their kids, their homes, and they leave because they really believe there’s an opportunity for them, to make money and to save such money, and they don’t know what’s awaiting them. That’s what’s really scary.
Monica inside
Monica now lives in the Phillippines with her family and son.
Khait with child. Khait lives with her daughter and parents.
Ross Ann walks up park steps with children. Marie lives alone with her two children.
Emirati woman/Hessa We have been unable to contact Hessa since this interview.
Leila MWS looks at camera.
Laily died of leukaemia on the 21st of April 2015, ten months after she recorded this interview.
END CREDITS
CREDITS
Narration
Laura Howard
With thanks to
Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP) Dhaka
Manoshi Barua
The Philippines
Producer
Ana P. Santos
Assistant Producer
Jake Soriano
Director Of Photography
Raymund Amonoy
Sound
RJ Jacinto
Lights
Adonis Dela Cruz
Bangladesh
Producer and Camera
Salman Saeed
Archive Footage
Donal Boyd
BBC News
BBC Bristol
Research
Eloise Dicker
Owen Pinnell
Hayley Rhodes
Sean O’Driscoll
Additional Filming and Research
Paul James Driscoll
Post Production
Azimuth Post
Reconstruction
Director of Photography
Fred Scott
Extra
Lulu Nana
UK DOPs
David Faye
Kevin McGregor
Phil Bligh
Dub
Ed Railton
Grade
Fouad Al Chabawi
Head of Production
Emanuele Pasquale
Editors
John Moratiel
Shayma Alissi
BBC Arabic
Head of Programmes
Samir Farah
Deputy Head of Programmes
Louay Ismail
Executive Producer
Greg Lanning
Documentaries Editor
Marc Perkins
Producer-Director
Christine Garabedian.