Telugu women lured with domestic jobs, forced into cross-massage services in UAE

Massage parlours where women offer massage services to men is a flourishing business across the United Arab Emirates. These centres mainly target South Asian bachelors who are living in the country

Dubai: Several Telugu women from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, all of them deeply in debt to loan sharks back home in India, are allegedly being lured to attractive domestic jobs in the Gulf with middlemen then forcing them into massage parlours to offer sexual services.

Massage parlours where women offer massage services to men is a flourishing business across the United Arab Emirates. These centres mainly target South Asian bachelors who are living in the country.

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The massage service is based on an ethnic background and they accordingly provide women masseurs from various parts of India.

“I was shocked to find scores of women from both the Telugu States in the large apartment where massage services are being offered to men,” said a 40-year-old woman who escaped from the clutches of organisers and reached the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi recently.

The woman, who hails from Visakhapatnam, was lured by a woman and man from the same city by offering her babysitter’s job in Dubai, according to her.

She resisted and refused to be part of it, as she told people who helped her reach the Indian Embassy. She said she was made to starve apart from being tortured for the one month she was there before she could escape.

The woman was brought on a visiting visa and the duo had promised her that it would be converted into an employment visa following a probationary period.

Several women from Hyderabad city were also found in similar conditions, though they prefer to silent even after escape fearing social stigma.

The rampant massage centres in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are popular among blue-collar Asian workers. These are unlike traditional therapeutic relaxation with traditional remedy massage centres.

Every weekend and during holidays, organisers drop business cards with women’s photos along with a telephone number to contact them. In fact, it is difficult to walk along with families on busy streets during holidays amidst the scattering of cards.