Arab Princesses Found Guilty of Trafficking, Abusing Servants

Eight Arab princesses were given 15-month sentences by a Brussels court for trafficking and abusing their servants.

One of the guilty princesses is a widow of an Abu Dhabi sheikh. The other seven are her daughters.

Apparently, it’s a family business. It’s yet another example of human rights, Islam style.

DW.com has the details:

“Eight princesses from Abu Dhabi’s ruling al-Nahyan family were each given a 15-month suspended prison sentence and fined 165,000 euros ($185,000) on Friday after a court in Belgium found them guilty of human trafficking and degrading their servants.

“The incident dates back to 2008, when Princess Shekha Alnehayan and her seven daughters rented an entire floor in Brussels’ Conrad Hotel for several months and brought more than 20 servants with them.

“According to the prosecution, the workers were “treated like slaves” and forced to attend to the princesses’ every wish 24 hours a day, while not being given enough food or beds to sleep in. Prosecutors said the princesses had also confiscated their passports and refused to pay their salaries.

“Authorities were made aware of the degrading conditions after one servant managed to flee the hotel and report the case to the police, who subsequently raided the hotel.”

Despite the ruling, the princesses were still found not guilty of subjecting the victims to inhumane conditions — a charge that would have brought harsher punishments.

They were also found not guilty of violating Belgian labor laws, a rather remarkable ruling, given the servants were never given the proper work permits or visas. The loophole on that was the servants were technically employed by a company calleed “Private Department,” and not the princesses.