Dubai: Slavery's New Mecca

Men and women interact in a bar in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Friday, Oct. 19, 2007. Dubai has transformed itself from a trading village to the Persian Gulf's financial and tourist hub with lower .

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - To enter Dubai's most notorious brothel, the Cyclone, I paid $16 for a ticket that the bursar stamped with the official seal of the Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing. Prostitution is illegal in Dubai, whose laws are rooted in Islam, with penalties ranging up to death. But the stamp was only the first of several contradictions in a place of slavery for women that one well-travelled British monger referred to as "Disneyland for men."

One sign read No Soliciting; another read No Camouflage in the Disco Area. In the club, no less than 500 prostitutes solicited a couple dozen prospective clients, some Western servicemen among them.

An Indian living in London owned the place, and had not updated the decor in a decade, as if taste would reduce the charm and thus deter tourists. I walked over to the bar, and two Korean girls, who looked no older than 15 and claimed to be sisters, approached me...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NationalPost.com