Dubai: Sun, sea and sexual harassment

[X.]

Oh, those poor white women need protection while sunbathing in thongs on the beach!

This is what I call investigative journalism. I salute you, 7days.

Sun, sea and sexual harassment
A few hours on Dubai’s public beaches are guaranteed to make any woman feel like a piece of meat on display in a butcher’s shop. That was certainly my feeling yesterday after being sent to join herds of people celebrating Eid at Jumierah Beach Park. We arrived at about 10:40 am where several hundred people were already sunbathing. more

[ozzylogic]

Dress like a bitch, get treated like one.

[animatedude]

what there's no guards on the beach? i think there should be since dubai is full of single desperate horny workers.

[kaytee]

I don't think wearing a bikini and sitting on a beach is wrong, it is a part of the Western culture. And why not accept this when we have accepted everything else from the West.

But women should know better on where to be wearing a bikini and where not too.

Y should waering a bikini be frowned upon when Prostitution is legal in Dubai?

[X.]

To put my own feelings into perspective:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with women wearing bikinis on the beach. As kaytee rightly said, it’s part of the Western culture and if anyone else doesn’t like it (or really really likes it as the case may be!) then that’s their prejudice.

That said I take beef with 7days for sending - what it is made out to be - an innocent lamb to “the butcher’s shop.” Zainab Fattah, the reporter who went undercover, has used this report as an opportunity to highlight sexual harassment on Dubai beaches. I think that was a fair and relevant thing to do. However part of being a journalist is to drill down to the root of the problem – analyse the cause not the effect. But why scandalise sexual harassment and not touch on the more important issue of social discrimination or cultural integration? I think we all know the answer to that – on a slow news day, ‘hot’ stories like these is what gets the papers flying off shelves.

7days is fast becoming a mouthpiece of the overpaid, low-culture Jumeirah crowd. Caution: read with a brain.

[fizz]

and I quote.....7 days is the voice of the white guy in Dubai (Jumeirah Jane's/Mirdiff Mike's).

They can sometimes be objective, but lose sight of the story in pursuit of finding nice scoops.

As any journalist will tell you, the job of a newspaper is to report the news, not create it.

[madali]

Yes, let them discuss the root of the problem, the fact that poor laborers are being kept in Dubai, already in debt, their passports held by the company, salary of 800 per month, havent seen their wives in years, and OH NO, they are using their one free day to look at some half-naked women.

Why not do what Dubai is itching to do, just close off the beaches, and not allow any poor people in. Or, even better, just go the extra step, and shut off the labor camps, and don't let any of them out, and spoil the poor image of Dubai.

[X.]

I recommend you read the responses to this story. Scroll down to the bottom of that page.

Here's one choice comment:

7 days! Thankyou for finally raising awareness about this issue which my friends and I have to deal with CONSTANTLY. I am a western teenager living in Dubai, and when I occassionaly go to the beach with friends I am followed and harrassed. However this doesn’t just take place on the beach. My worst experience was in Wild Wadi, I was in the lazy river with my friend when a man, swam underwater and pulled my trunks right down TWICE! I was disgusted and furious ,the next time my friend went a similar incident happened. I would like to thank wild wadi for dealing with them severely. This uncivilised behaviour is disgusting and any man who thinks that women want this attention is wrong.

Why would anyone want old, fat, ugly, perverted men to stare at them and touch them, when this happens I feel sick and my whole day is ruined.

Its easy for people to say that you should cover up more, but Dubai promotes itself as a tourist hotspot and to be honest it doesn’t make a differene what your wearing as everytime I walk to the shop (in jumeirah) in baggy t-shirt and trousers, I get harrassed and was once dragged into a car only to be stopped by surrounding taxi drivers.

This uncivilised behaviour says a great deal about how many perverted men in dubai view women as a ‘piece of meat’, this uncivilised, uneducated, and disgusting behaviour has to stop.[/quote[

[sandeep]

There are always two sides to a story... If people are letching, thats bad... but if women dress too provacatively in public, they are bound to get stares... it all comes down to culture... Dubai, however modern it may be, is still governed by a conservative culture, and a major proportion of the population is modest in their approach to dressing.

I thought a lot about solutions... A paid public beach obviously hasnt worked. What if one side of the beach was for 'families only'? But that would mean single men, like many of us, couldnt enter unless we were accompanied by women... So, like KT said, should poor people who have nothing else to do on their weekend by enjoy the open beach be locked up, or some concrete action be taken so that everyone here, regardless of economical standing, has a life, and varied places for clean entertainment.

[animatedude]

i don't know why you guys bother reading newspapers.i quit reading 'em years ago cos they give me headache plus they are run by monkeys.i can't believe they sell newspapers, i think they should pay you to read it.

[madali]

I stopped reading the papers after news.google.com