An investigation has revealed a degrading sex-trafficking ring targeting African women allegedly run by a former London bus driver in the wealthy Gulf emirate.
A Dubai sex trafficking network has been linked to the deaths of at least two women and the abuse of dozens of others, according to a BBC exposé on the dark underbelly of the Gulf emirate.
An investigation by the BBC World Service has identified a former West London bus driver as an alleged key figure in a prostitution ring that forces Ugandan women to undertake extreme sex work for wealthy, mainly white European clients.
He told an undercover reporter posing as a client that he could provide women who would do "pretty much everything".
Rumours of extreme sex parties in Dubai have surfaced on the internet in recent years. The viral hashtag #DubaiPortaPotty has become notorious, with internet users speculating about young women travelling to the emirate and being paid money to participate in sex acts involving human faeces.
One Ugandan woman, referred to as Mia by the BBC, claimed the man named in the BBC investigation forced her into sex work by trapping her with thousands of pounds of debt.
"That means you have to work hard, hard, hard, pleading for men to come and sleep [with] you," she said.
Another woman, known as Lexi, described clients' frequent degrading and abusive requests.
"There was a client who said: 'We pay you 15,000 Arab Emirates Dirham ($4,084, £3,013) to gang-rape you, pee in your face, beat you, and add in 5,000 ($1,361, £1,004)' for being recorded eating faeces," she told the outlet.
She believes clients targeted her because of her race.
"Every time I said that I wouldn't want to do that, it seemed to get them more interested. They want somebody who is going to cry and scream and run. And that somebody [in their eyes] should be a black person," she said.
A man who said he used to work as the network's operations manager told the outlet that presidents, footballers and musicians were among the ring's powerful clientele.
Lexi said that the police refused to help her.
"You Africans cause problems for each other. We don't want to get involved. And they would hang up," she said.
The Dubai police didn't respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Monic Karungi, from western Uganda, died shortly after escaping the ring in 2022.
Having been more than $27,000 in debt, she later managed to find another job and moved to a new apartment.
Four days later, she was found dead after falling from her balcony.
Another Ugandan woman, Kayla Birungi, was found dead in 2021 in similar circumstances. Multiple people told the BBC that the apartment she fell from was managed by the same former bus driver.
The Dubai police ruled both of their deaths as suicides, though friends and family members were unhappy with their investigations.
The man denied the allegations when approached by the BBC.
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