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Envoy vows to help woman forced into prostitution
September 16, 2004
Egyptian Ambassador Dr Azmi Khalifa pledged yesterday to help a woman, who was
injured while trying to escape from captors she says were trying to force her
into prostitution.
The 23-year-old Egyptian woman is still recovering in Salmaniya Medical
Complex, a month after breaking her hip and left arm when she jumped from a
two-storey apartment in Exhibition Road.
She says she wants to stay in Bahrain to prosecute the gang which she says
tricked her into coming here by promising her a job in public relations.
They then held her captive, beat her, burnt her with cigarettes and threatened
her at knifepoint, says the woman, who asked not to be named.
She claimed earlier that the Egyptian Embassy had held on to her passport and
was trying to get her out of the country, to avoid a fuss.
Dr Khalifa said that the only reason that the embassy had held onto her
passport was because it was needed by Bahraini officials for various
procedures, including the prosecution of the alleged prostitution network.
"It's not true that we are standing in her way. We support her as we would
support any Egyptian national in her position," he said.
"We have her passport for safekeeping. She is injured and in hospital. It would
be easy for someone to steal her passport or for her to lose it, in the state
that she is in.
"We are also in contact with Bahraini officials, who also need her passport for
the case to continue. She is welcome to take her passport back."
Dr Khalifa also said that the embassy is not forcing the woman to go back to
Egypt.
"It's not up to us to force her to go back. If she wants to stay here and take
up employment she is free to do so," he said.
The embassy may even appoint her a lawyer, but there are procedures and
requirements that have to be met first, said Dr Khalifa.
The woman jumped out of the second-storey window four days after arriving in
Bahrain.
She said she was pomised a job at a hotel here, by an Egyptian man in Cairo.
The woman was met at Bahrain International Airport on August 13 by an Egyptian
couple and a Bahraini man.
Sensing that something was wrong, she asked them to be sent back to Egypt and
so they took her passport away, promising to arrange her return flight.
She said she found out that she was expected to work as a prostitute after
being taken to an apartment on Exhibition Road.
"When I refused I was beaten up and they burned cigarette butts on my skin,"
she told the GDN earlier.
She said she was later forced at knifepoint to sign two blank cheques and one
paper which stated that she owed them 25,000 Egyptian pounds.
The woman is worried that if she doesn't take the case to court in Bahrain that
the documents she signed could be used against her in court when she lands in
Egypt.
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US
sanctions against three countries over human trafficking
9-13-2004
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