 BY BABUKAR KASHKA
(IDN Middle East Desk) - Apparently, human beings have managed to assimilate the crabs’ ability to walk forth and back with equal ease. This is evident in many human activities, particularly in the field of human rights, where bigger steps backward often reverse smaller steps forward. The case of the camel child-jockeys in the Middle East is just one more clamorous example.
Camel racing is an old Bedouin tradition in the Arab region, particularly in countries with large deserts. More recently, it became a lucrative tourist attraction.
Unlike the fights between gladiators and between men and lions in old Rome, and present-day dog-fights and cock-fights in the U.S. and China, as well as the bull-fights in Spain - all of which end with the death of one of the combatants - camel racing used to be a way of showing tribesmen's pride for possessing the best camels in the region.
Gradually, these races were transformed in a sort of organised business oriented exercise. This required more sophisticated preparations, such as the use of light-weight riders or jockeys.
Children appeared as the best option for the job. Recruited by human traffickers with the promise of a better life, hundreds of children were hijacked or bought from the poorest families in poor countries, such as Bangladesh and Sudan, and then ‘exported’ to the Gulf countries, for their exploitation as camel-jockeys.
MAKING CHILDREN STARVE
Race organizers would go further - they would force those children to work hard without eating, to the very limit of starvation.
Perhaps one of the most comprehensive professional media reports on this issue is the one filed by Al Jazeera’s reporter Nicolas Haque on May 22 from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Haque tells the story of a boy called Shameem Miah, who was just three years old when he travelled to the Gulf state of Dubai.
"Lured by the promise of a better life, his family says they sold all of their land and belongings, even going into debt, in order to pay for the move," Haque reports.
He goes on: "Shameem Miah is one of 879 Bangladeshi children who will receive compensation from the United Arab Emirates for years of suffering as child camel-jockey. The Bangladeshi authorities have received 1.43 million dollars from the UAE, which will be distributed among the families of former child-jockeys."
Commenting on the UAE's decision to economically compensate the child victims of such practices and their families, Haque says "this is an unprecedented move to compensate child-jockeys for camel races".
Haque then explains that a strong pressure from human rights groups led the UAE to ban the use of child-jockeys in 2005. Most had been trafficked from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan.
According to the report, Shameem’s father paid 4,500 dollars to migrant traffickers who had promised him gainful employment in the UAE. The traffickers had arranged for the children to work as well.
"On arrival in Dubai, Shameem and his two brothers - then aged five and six - were separated from their parents to take part in camel races," tells Haque. "A toddler, Shameem had only just learnt to walk when he was first seated upon a camel's back."
THE BIG SCARE
"I used to be so scared of the camels, at the beginning, I would fall off the camels all the time," Shameem says. His brother Muna says that Shameem was so small that he had to be strapped on to the camel, says the report, adding that the children's "terrified screams drove the camels to race even faster, much to the satisfaction of the camel owners".
Prized for their light-weight, the child-jockeys say they were intentionally starved, often going days without food, in order to keep them below 20 kilos, says the report.
"The camel owners would weigh us and if we ate too much, they would give us electrical shocks. I was so scared of them, I remember, if I would lose a race they would beat me," Shameem is quoted saying.
Haque reports that "to this day, Shameem bears the scars of five years of abuse by his employer, and countless falls". Many other child-jockeys, however, have suffered much worse, sustaining life-long injuries from being trampled under the charging camels. Some are known to have died.
"For five years Shameem and his brother lived and worked in a barbed wire encircled camp near the desert race track, where they often laboured 18 hours a day for a payment of only four dollars a month," Al Jazeera reporter says.
CHILDREN, SOLD INTO SLAVERY
Even this tiny wage was of help to Shameem's father, 45-year-old Abul Kashem Miah - many children were in effect sold into slavery and received nothing.
"For Shameem's father, the situation was heartbreaking," says Haque. "He deeply regrets that he could not prevent the use of his sons as camel jockeys, saying: ‘All I could think of was paying off our debt and getting out of poverty so that we could leave to go back to Bangladesh'."
The report goes on to tell that at the age of eight, Shameem was discarded by his employer, deemed too old and heavy to race camels. In the meantime, camel jockeys have been replaced by robots, something Shameem has a difficult time imagining.
"It is clear that his experience of camel jockeying will remain with him forever," says the report, "as he describes training with the camel every day, being fed just biscuits and water, allowed to sleep – only when completely exhausted – alongside the other children, directly on the sand."
"He says he rarely rode with a helmet and constantly burned his feet on the hot desert sand because he had not been given shoes."
Haque informs that only 874 former child-jockeys will receive compensation despite the fact that many more are believed to have been trafficked. Most of those still awaiting payment are now teenagers.
The report also takes up the issue of missing children, saying that according to the UK-based human rights group, Anti-Slavery International, some 2,000 unaccounted for child camel jockeys have not yet returned to their families from the Gulf states.
EGYPT JOINS THE RACE
Shortly after that report, the Cairo-based non-governmental organisation 'For Juridical and Constitutional Studies', known as Maat, released a study on the sidelines of the recent UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
The review, titled ‘Camel Racing and Exploitation of Children for Recreational Purposes - from the Gulf to Egypt’, states that "one of the most outstanding forms of slavery and trafficking in human beings" in the Arab region, "is the use of child camel jockeys in the Gulf area, a practice that was extended to Egypt in recent years".
According to Maat, camel race organizers in the Egyptian provinces of Alsharkia, Ismailia and Sinai have been using children for that purpose.
‘This is happening despite all that has been achieved at the international level in the field of human rights and all the efforts carried out by UN organisations in this regard’ says Maat.
UGLY FACE
"Nevertheless, there is still the ugly face of some communities which have the luxury to see the children suffering and working to starve them so as to lose weight in order to win in these old Bedouin practices called camel races," Maat adds.
The study explains that usually these children are trafficked and sold or lent at low prices, to other countries.
Maat condemns such behaviour, which contrasts with efforts toward developing a legal framework aimed at protecting children from all forms of exploitation and discrimination.
The human rights organisation then refers to the most relevant international agreements and conventions. "We can see that in spite of all these mechanisms and texts, these races are still held in many places."
"The biggest problem is that these races are held under the pretext of development and promotion of tourism," says Maat.
Maat and the Human Rights Council had expressed their grave concern about these practices.
Currently Maat, in cooperation with the Egyptian Centre for Children Rights, is advocating for the setting up of an Egyptian national mechanism "to protect Egyptian children from entertainment exploitation in all its forms, such as camel racing or acrobatics, circus, and sports, which imply a danger for children’s lives, as well as their exploitation for advertising and drama and film production, in violation of ethical standards and their innocence". - 16.06.2009
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