:00:00. > 3:59:59would have been proud of. Both on and off the pitch, they are a club
:00:00. > :00:00.with quite a story. Now on BBC News it's time for
:00:00. > :00:15.Our World. This footage was filmed secretly in
:00:16. > :00:27.the United Arab Emirates. The woman in green is on trial. Her feet are
:00:28. > :00:32.chained. Her alleged crime? Sex outside marriage. In the UAE, that
:00:33. > :01:09.can land you in prison. Women are being trapped by the
:01:10. > :01:14.UAE's laws, especially the migrant workers. Tens of thousands of women
:01:15. > :01:17.believe there is an opportunity for them in the UAE and they don't know
:01:18. > :01:26.what is awaiting them and that is what is really scary. Many stay
:01:27. > :01:29.silent through fear. But in a year-long investigation, we have
:01:30. > :01:32.tracked down women around the world who are brave enough to speak out.
:01:33. > :01:51.This is their story. Dubai, a place of sunshine and
:01:52. > :01:59.opportunity. Many women come looking for a better life. 90% of the
:02:00. > :02:04.population in the UAE is foreign. But they can find themselves trapped
:02:05. > :02:11.by the country's strict Sharia -based laws on sex outside
:02:12. > :02:16.marriage. Marie travelled to Dubai to work as a domestic helper. We
:02:17. > :02:21.have changed her name to protect her identity. After four years, she met
:02:22. > :02:58.a local man. Still unmarried, she had two
:02:59. > :03:02.daughters with her boyfriend. But that is a crime under the country's
:03:03. > :03:44.strict laws of Zina. Even though Marie had committed a
:03:45. > :03:45.crime, her boyfriend's family welcomes them into their home until
:03:46. > :04:19.a friend intervened. The family decided that Marie and
:04:20. > :04:25.her daughters should return home to the Philippines. But she had left
:04:26. > :04:29.her first employer without permission, breaking the country's
:04:30. > :04:37.laws which give bosses exclusive rights to their workers. And the
:04:38. > :04:41.employer still have her passport -- had. So the only way Marie could try
:04:42. > :04:56.to leave the country was to hand herself over to the authorities.
:04:57. > :05:03.Marie was put on trial. Like the vast majority of domestic workers
:05:04. > :05:28.who have to face the law, she couldn't afford a lawyer.
:05:29. > :05:37.The judge found Marie guilty of breaking both the Zina laws and the
:05:38. > :05:44.working laws and sentenced her two months in jail with her two
:05:45. > :06:12.daughters. She said prison life was harsh. -- three months.
:06:13. > :06:18.The Zina laws prohibiting sex outside marriage apply to everyone
:06:19. > :06:22.in the UAE. But it is overwhelmingly women who are caught because
:06:23. > :06:28.pregnancy is proof the law has been broken. Local women often resort to
:06:29. > :06:36.illegal abortions to avoid being punished. But women migrant workers
:06:37. > :06:46.can often be trapped by the work system, even if they have been
:06:47. > :06:47.raped. This woman left her home in Bangladesh for a job as a domestic
:06:48. > :07:21.helper in the UAE. One day, she was alone in the family
:07:22. > :08:18.home when she says her employer raped her.
:08:19. > :08:27.After her ordeal, she was trapped in her employer's home. Under the work
:08:28. > :08:32.system, she couldn't leave without his permission. Then her situation
:08:33. > :09:05.got worse. The pregnancy meant that both she
:09:06. > :09:10.and her employer were in danger of prosecution under the country's Zina
:09:11. > :09:28.laws. Her employer sent her back to Bangladesh.
:09:29. > :09:40.Once she was back in Bangladesh, she had an abortion. She never reported
:09:41. > :09:47.the alleged rape. Experts in the UAE's legal system stress that
:09:48. > :09:48.that's -- that the Zina laws are not meant to punish women who have been
:09:49. > :10:29.raped. The UAE is not the only country in
:10:30. > :10:36.the region to criminalize sex outside marriage. But human rights
:10:37. > :10:39.campaigners believe it's high number of migrant workers means more abused
:10:40. > :10:47.women are being trapped and the authorities should act. They need to
:10:48. > :10:52.decriminalize consensual sexual relations. This would then lift off
:10:53. > :10:56.the possibility that victims could be prosecuted and allow them to lay
:10:57. > :10:59.claims. Then you need to ensure that those who end up as victims are in a
:11:00. > :11:06.situation where they are not vulnerable. In recent years, many of
:11:07. > :11:17.the most vulnerable women in the UAE have sought help from a committed
:11:18. > :11:20.campaigner. This is the house, come on in. She transformed her house
:11:21. > :11:29.into a shelter for abused women and children.
:11:30. > :11:38.This is a room where there are up to three beds. It is very comfortable.
:11:39. > :11:48.Well, if she comes to me and she is pregnant, I get her an examination
:11:49. > :11:53.and a ghetto somebody, a midwife to come and visit on a regular basis,
:11:54. > :12:00.and I try to turn a negative into a positive. Can I speak to a lawyer
:12:01. > :12:08.and he handles it the best way that he can. The problem is that if they
:12:09. > :12:14.end up being hauled in by the sponsor, pregnant and being accused
:12:15. > :12:22.of something, the scenario is not so good. Usually she will go to jail.
:12:23. > :12:31.She says she helped up to 3000 women and children between 1991 and 2008.
:12:32. > :12:41.Every case of a woman that had been physically abused or raped or
:12:42. > :12:47.unpaid, I felt it. I am American, I came into religion, and what
:12:48. > :12:51.inspired me was you have to be responsible for your neighbours. In
:12:52. > :13:01.the house would be full, and I would just say, please, please expand the
:13:02. > :13:09.walls. And I think he did. I don't know how we got 70 women in that
:13:10. > :13:12.house, but somehow we did. Somehow, every single day there was chicken
:13:13. > :13:18.coming to the door. Somehow there was enough a before Miller, enough
:13:19. > :13:23.volunteers. Somehow, somehow, somehow. After many years of helping
:13:24. > :13:29.women in the UAE, she was advised to leave the country. She now lives in
:13:30. > :13:39.America but remains a passionate believer in the rights of the UAE's
:13:40. > :13:43.vulnerable women. We have some amazing amazing authorities in these
:13:44. > :13:53.countries, some great people and great leaders who are very worldly
:13:54. > :14:03.and open-minded and educated. If they only just understood what the
:14:04. > :14:07.details of this victim's life were they would be appalled and they
:14:08. > :14:25.would say, enough is enough. But they don't. Why? Because there is
:14:26. > :14:29.this Shhhh. Some women are pushed to such extremes that they can't keep
:14:30. > :14:37.quiet. Monica had a job as a domestic worker in Abu Dhabi. She
:14:38. > :14:43.says that one day she found herself alone in the house with her
:14:44. > :15:18.employer's driver. Like many victims, Monica did not
:15:19. > :15:23.feel able to report the alleged rape. She lived in fear, trapped in
:15:24. > :15:27.the house. To make things worse, she discovered she was pregnant. She
:15:28. > :15:43.could now be punished for sex outside marriage.
:15:44. > :15:49.In spite of the alleged rape and the pregnancy, under her contract,
:15:50. > :16:22.Monica still needed her employer's permission to leave.
:16:23. > :16:30.But she had one last chance to escape. She had a secret cellphone
:16:31. > :16:38.hidden in the kitchen. She used it to call a popular radio show back
:16:39. > :17:32.home in the Philippines. She appealed for help live on-air.
:17:33. > :17:40.As a result of Monica's desperate appeal, the Philippines government
:17:41. > :17:44.intervened. They put diplomatic pressure on the UAE to let her go
:17:45. > :17:57.home. When she arrived in Manila, the
:17:58. > :18:03.first person she called was her husband. Neither he nor her family
:18:04. > :18:08.knew that she had been raped or that she was pregnant. We filmed with her
:18:09. > :19:13.shortly after she told them. A few weeks after our interview,
:19:14. > :19:17.Monica had a baby boy. There are no official figures available, but we
:19:18. > :19:25.estimate that hundreds of vulnerable women are being caught by the UAE's
:19:26. > :19:29.laws every year. They are either victims of abuse or end up in prison
:19:30. > :19:36.for consensual sex outside marriage. The problem is that every
:19:37. > :19:41.single year tens of thousands of women are migrating, leaving behind
:19:42. > :19:44.their kids, their homes, and they are leaving because they believe
:19:45. > :19:48.there is an opportunity for them to make money and save money and they
:19:49. > :19:55.don't know what is awaiting them. That is what is really scary.
:19:56. > :19:59.We made repeated requests to the UAE authorities over many months for an
:20:00. > :20:05.interview on the laws on sex outside marriage, but received no response.
:20:06. > :20:07.In the last few days they have issued a statement stressing
:20:08. > :20:44.that... The UAE's legal system is based on
:20:45. > :21:09.Sharia law. Many people here believe those laws are fair and appropriate.
:21:10. > :21:15.The UAE promotes itself as a land of opportunity, but for many of its
:21:16. > :21:23.women, especially migrant workers, there is a darker side. The story of
:21:24. > :21:27.how women are falling foul of the UAE's laws has been largely untold
:21:28. > :21:31.until now. It is about a clash between the country's Conservative
:21:32. > :21:38.traditions and the human rights of the women who help to grow. It is a
:21:39. > :21:45.challenge, because Islamic leave they have every right. If this is
:21:46. > :21:49.your law, this is your law. But the same time, if this is your law and
:21:50. > :21:56.you are Muslim and you things run Islamic leave, then this is a
:21:57. > :22:04.challenge. How do you do that? You have to draw the line, I'm not
:22:05. > :22:11.sure. Monica still lives in the Philippines with her family. Marie
:22:12. > :22:23.lives near Manila with her two children. Their father has not been
:22:24. > :22:59.in contact. This woman died of leukaemia on the 21st of April on.
:23:00. > :23:02.18 degrees makes it very mild through the day on Friday.
:23:03. > :23:06.And we keep that mild theme through the day, both Saturday and Sunday.