UAE pays out $1.43 mln to child camel jockeys

I read today that the UAE will finally compensate Bangladeshi child camel jockeys (see http://business.maktoob.com for details)

Their initial ideas was to compensate a few children with about 60,000 dollars, however a lot more children were uncovered in Bangladesh who have worked and been abused by their Arab slave-owners, so now the UAE is paying about a million and a half dollars to over a thousand children, which is really not much (between 1,000 and 10,000 dollars per child) but having mind they are poor Bangladeshis, it's fine..

What I thought is that if there is no pressure from abroad (the West), people in UAE and around the region will not get better in their treatment of other humans. Thanks to campaigning by human rights groups, only now the UAE is compensating these children who were bought to ride on the back of a racing camel, if the child fell, well sorry little poor Bangladeshi boy... it's just an expense for us, since we bought you and you're nothing but a product helping our camels race better.

Here's the full story:

Bangladeshi children trafficked to the Middle East to work as camel jockeys will receive thousands of dollars in compensation for the injuries and abuse they suffered, an official in Dhaka said Wednesday.

Tanjim Ahmed, Bangladesh's minister for home affairs, said a delegation from the United Arab Emirates travelled to the country this week and handed over a cheque for $1.43 million to be divided between 879 children.

"Using children as camel jockeys was a despicable incident. It stirred the world's conscience. The scars will heal through this compensation," Ahmed said.

Each former child jockey will get between $1,000 and $10,000, he said.

In the 1990s, thousands of young boys - some as young as three - were sold to Arab countries such as UAE and Saudi Arabia, where their small size was valued in the competitive camel racing scene.

The jockeys frequently fell off the animals, sustaining injuries that could be fatal if they were trampled upon, according to the UN children's fund UNICEF.

"This compensation programme will be a great help to those affected children for their rehabilitation, medical treatment and education," Ahmed said.

About 200 Bangladeshi children were repatriated in 2005 when the UAE signed an agreement with UNICEF to outlaw the practice.

The UAE officially banned child jockeys in 1993 although abuses remained widespread until the 2005 agreement.

The UAE announced in October last year it would give $52,700 to Bangladeshi children identified as having worked as camel jockeys, but Ahmed said a nationwide search in Bangladesh had uncovered hundreds more.

Munna Mia, who worked in Dubai as a camel jockey from the age of five to nine, welcomed the compensation but said he still suffered the emotional and physical scars.

"We are poor. This money is like winning the lottery for us, but it won't erase the pain and suffering I went through," Mia, now 17, told news agency AFP by phone from northern Bangladesh where he works in a shop.

"I don't know how much money I will get," he added.

Christine Jaulmes, spokesperson for UNICEF in Bangladesh, said the UAE's money was an important step in eradicating child jockeys throughout the Gulf states.

"The UAE government can play a key role in advocating that other Gulf countries must act against the involvement of children in camel racing and fight against other forms of trafficking," she said.

Grinding poverty and lack of jobs in Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, drives millions abroad each year to send money back to their families.

Poor parents are vulnerable to traffickers who prey on their desperation by making false promises of good jobs abroad for their children.

Instead, some parents find that their children end up working as camel jockeys, prostitutes or maids working in slave-like conditions.