06 June 2005

Saudi Arabia and Qatar rejected a U.S. State Department report naming them as top offenders in human trafficking. The report said victims in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were forced to become domestic servants, laborers and prostitutes and even boy camel jockeys as young as three.

"We are surprised by the contents of the report, and we disagree with most of what has been mentioned," said Saudi Prince Torki bin Mohammad bin Saud al-Kabeer, under secretary for political affairs at the Saudi Foreign Ministry.

"The rules and regulations of Saudi Arabia prohibit exploitation and trafficking of people. Our religion also does not accept this," he said.

Qatar also insisted that its laws prohibited human trafficking and said it was not aware of any such rights violations in the country.

"These claims are totally unexpected and are something we disagree with completely," a senior Qatari official said.

"The laws of Qatar are strong and we have taken many steps to ensure equal rights for all. We are not aware of any human trafficking."

Khalid al-Attiya, head of Qatar's National Human Rights Committee, a state-funded non-government organization, also said he was surprised by the report.

"We are not sure what they are referring to. Qatar has already banned the use of children as camel jockeys, and, to my knowledge, there were no cases of any of these children being trafficked," Attiya said.

Qatar last month issued a law banning the use of children in camel races following international criticism. The U.A.E. passed a similar law in March.

Human rights groups have highlighted trafficking problems in the Gulf for years and U.S. President George W. Bush has said that he would make human rights and democracy a central plank of U.S. relations with countries in the region this year.

The State Department annual report put the four U.S. allies in the lowest category for human trafficking. Such states "do not fully comply with the minimum standards [laid down by U.S. law] and are not making significant efforts to do so."

States in this category could face sanctions if they do not improve their record within three months. But such sanctions have rarely been applied, and even if they were, would not have much effect on the wealthy OPEC oil producers.

Torki admitted that violations of Saudi rules may occur - as in anywhere else in the world - but insisted the government had taken significant steps to help bring offenders to justice and planned to introduce new rules for foreign workers soon.

Efforts to combat human trafficking included the establishment of a domestic non-governmental organization, the National Human Rights Association (NHRA), which was looking into cases of reported abuse, he said.

The Saudi Labor Ministry had also established committees around the country to deal with any issues or complaints, he said.

"We will study the report and respond to it," Torki said.

Officials from other Gulf states mentioned in the report were not immediately available to comment. All are hoping for free trade agreements with the United States, but their labor laws are cited by U.S. officials as an obstacle.

In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, an NHRA official said that around 2,000 complaints had been received since the independent body was set up just over a year ago. Only a "small handful" had been settled so far and at least 30 percent of the total involved domestic violence, the paper quoted Suhaila Hammad, who heads the organization's research and analysis section, as saying. Officials from the NHRA were not available to comment. - Agencies