Child jockeys eliminated from camel racing in UAE, say government, UNICEF

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This article was published 17/12/2006 (7174 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The Emirates government said Sunday it had succeeded in eliminating the use of young boys as camel jockeys and UNICEF confirmed the eradication of a practice that had drawn international criticism.

In a statement carried by the official news agency WAM, the government also said it would be spending C$10 million to support more than 1,000 former child jockeys who have been repatriated to their countries.

Many of the child jockeys – who came from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh – had been trafficked into virtual slavery in the Emirates, and news revelations about their brutal lives embarrassed the country’s leaders and damaged its image as a progressive Arab country.

The statement appeared aimed at supporting Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, against a lawsuit in the United States which alleges that his sponsorship of camel racing had encouraged the smuggling of boys as young as four to be trained as jockeys.

Sheik Mohammed’s legal representative in Dubai has dismissed the suit “baseless.”

UNICEF spokesman Omar Shehadeh said Sunday he believed the government’s two-year, C$13.5 million eradication plan had succeeded. UNICEF has been helping the Emirates to implement its’93 ban on child jockeys and repatriate the boys.

“We’ve been doing spot checks. There are no more child jockeys on the race tracks,” said Shehadeh of the U.N.’s children’s welfare agency. “But if anyone has different information, we always welcome tips.”

The recent adoption of inexpensive robot jockeys has made it easier for owners and trainers to comply with the ban, Shehadeh said.

The practice of boys racing camels survives elsewhere in the Gulf. The Bedouin-inspired sport is popular in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, where the governments have also banned jockeys under age’, but have not started repatriation programs.

“The UAE is in the lead on this,” Shehadeh said. “We’re still in the process of talking to these other countries.”

Sending child jockeys home is difficult. It can take months to find their families, who often live in extreme poverty, Shehadeh said.

He said in most cases, the jockey’s family knowingly “sold” their children to people in the camel racing business.

UNICEF is trying to ensure that the children will not be worse off by being sent home, and will be resold to the racing business.

Most jockeys came from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mauritania and Sudan, he said.

“In some cases, the parents didn’t know what they were giving their kids up for,” Shehadeh said. “Poverty is the main issue here.”

A handful of the 1,077 boy racers have not been able to find their families, he said.

In 2004, activists estimated that some 40,000 children were involved in the sport in the Gulf.

The Emirates’ cabinet, headed by Sheik Mohammed, earmarked C$10 million toward paying back wages and severance pay to ex-jockeys who left the country before the repatriations began.

Ex-jockeys will also receive health insurance and schooling under the program, which already pays for temporary housing in their home countries until UNICEF insures they can move home without being resold, Shehadeh said.

In 2005, a U.S. State Department report lambasted the Emirates and other Gulf countries for abusing the boys, saying they were deported once they grew too heavy to be useful as jockeys.

The deported boys were often unable to find their families or even speak their mother tongue, the report said.

In September, American lawyers in Miami filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of unnamed parents of thousands of boys suspected of being abused in the camel race trade in the Emirates over three decades.

The suit seeks unspecified damages from Emirates royal family members, including Sheik Mohammed and his brother Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum, both of whom own race horses in the United States.

Sheik Mohammed was served with the lawsuit in September while buying horses in Kentucky.