As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims in Qatar. Men and women from Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, and other countries voluntarily migrate to Qatar as unskilled laborers and domestic workers, often paying illegal and exorbitant fees to unscrupulous recruiters in their home countries, thereby increasing their vulnerability to debt bondage. Many migrant workers subsequently face conditions indicative of labor trafficking, to include restricted movement, delayed salaries or payment withholding, denial of employment-associated benefits, passport confiscation, and threats of deportation; in a small number of cases, migrant workers face physical, mental, and sexual abuse as well as threats of serious physical or financial harm. Anecdotally, sex traffickers force some women who migrate for legitimate employment offers to engage in commercial sex.

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims in the UAE. Foreign workers comprise nearly 90 percent of the UAE’s population...It is not uncommon for employers to subject some of these workers to conditions indicative of forced labor, such as passport retention, non-payment of wages and unpaid overtime, restrictions on movement, contract switching, fraudulent employment promises, substandard food and housing provisions, or a failure to meet other contractual agreements

UAE serves as a trafficking hub where recruiters sell migrants to families who subsequently illegally transport them to other countries in the Gulf.

many source-country labor recruiters charge workers exorbitant fees....increasing their vulnerability to trafficking through debt-based coercion.

reports of employers engaging in the practice of contract-swapping persist

some laborers enter the UAE on tourist visas and start working for an employer who subsequently opts to not change the tourist visa to a work visa...a common method of exploitation.