Marcus Fakana gets prison sentence in Dubai.

[Ohnonotmeagain]

This is the 18 year old lad who had a holiday romance with a 17 year old girl in Dubai. She was just short of 18.

her parents found out and reported him to the Dubai authorities before he returned home.

his poor parents aren’t well off and had to return home to work leaving him there.

he’s now been sentenced to 1 year in prison.

aibu to think this poor boy should never have been brought before court.

Have you any idea of what is likely to happen to a young black man in a Dubai prison? Look it up.

presumably it will impact his entire life young forward.

visas for travel.
criminal conviction- for a sex offence at that.
prison time
dbs checks.

the impact on jobs, careers, his whole life. That’s even if he comes out of prison in any sort of fit state to try and pick up his life.

I agree with all this, and ideally people wouldn't visit, or atvleast learn the lawnof the land and abide by them strictly.
That being said, I blame the country's laws AND the mother. Her action was entirely spiteful, and she used those brutal laws to punish the young man for enjoying consensual sex with her daughter.
She is as evil as the laws are.

TBH I very much doubt it'll make any difference among the kind of people who'll be attracted to a place because some nonentity gabs about it on social media

Gotta get those Insta "likes" after all

It doesn't bear thinking about. He is an adult but young. This will leave a big mark on his life, I hope he can rebuild and overcome it after

@OonaStubbs as pp have said your comparison doesn't make sense and isn't helpful

I'd happily go to Dubai, just wouldn't have extra-marital sex in a Muslim country.

you do know women aren’t always given a choice over who they have sex with?

rape happens in Dubai. You may not have the choice of not having extra marital sex.

then what. As women are prosecuted for being victims of rape.

but you’re ok with that?

She reported it back in England where it absolutely is not the law of the land. That was petty and cruel frankly. Really spiteful and you think that is ok!

I am not sure that anything would happen to the Iraqi man if he was having sex with his nine year old Iraqi wife in the UK. Because he would need to be married to her in order to legally have sex with her.
Distasteful as it might be to us, I don't think he would go to prison in the UK for this.

Oh absolutely he would- barring stuff like deportation which I know nothing about.

if a man was discovered having sex with a 9 year old in the Uk, whatever the circumstances, that child would be immediately removed under a police protection order. “Wife” or not.

the Dutch man having sex with a 12 year old was imprisoned here, despite 12 being the age of consent in his country.

Still convinced not seeing full story:
we are told -
mum sees daughters phone with messages and photos and reports the crime. Man gets arrested.

Wonder about those message/photos. Are they G-rated and yield no evidence to the crime that was committed.
or
Were the messages / photos explicit and based on metadata show that crime was committed in Dubai. Leading to parent getting police involved and leading to a clear cause for Dubai arrest.

Had anyone considered that young woman might have vulnerabilities that young man not aware of? Or, Might his messages, photos reveal a different situation ? We are only hearing his views … which are all self serving.

Or Dubai doesn’t require the standard of evidence in the UK. Maybe the mum reporting it was enough.

maybe the poor lad wasn’t given a lawyer and admitted they had consensual sex, not realising it was the age that was the issue and not the consent.

we don’t even know if she told him she was under 18. Or if the mum/girl is Muslim is there version taken over a non Muslim black boy’s?

I didn't think the police would come between an Iraqi man and his wife. Does this mean that married couples can't travel to places where the age of consent is higher than their ages?
The Dutch volleyball player was a bit different, he travelled to the UK to have sex with a British 12 year old. The age of consent in the Netherlands is also 16.

Jerry Lee Lewis didn't do very well on tour once the British Press found out the age of his wife in 1956.

in the Netherlands rape is only recognised if force is involved (until July 2024)

so when he was extradited to the Netherlands to serve his sentence his crime was substituted for “sexual acts that violate socio-ethical norms”, and he was released.

you really think British police would not remove a 9 year old “wife”, regardless of nationality? We stop children leaving the UK to be married under other countries laws all the time.

I don’t think the amendment has been passed in Iraq to allow 9 year olds to marry anyway.

current legal age for marriage in Iraq is 18.

And most ridiculous non comparable scenario award of the day goes to ...

Especially as the current legal age for marriage in Iraq is 18.

I think it is a terrible case but Dubai is a police state with hideous laws so don't go there voluntarily. Especially do not take your children there. You will not be special, you will not be the exception; the Draconian laws will apply to you. I would feel differently if someone were there as a journalist or campaigner or as one of Dubai's many poor migrants workers, but if you go there for fun or to benefit from the luxury lifestyle then you need to accept the risks involved.

This boy is now in a living nightmare and I hope something can be done for him but these cases hit the headlines every few weeks and nobody ever seems to take the warning.

Anyone who's spent a decent amount of time in the UAE knows that a lot of people are out there doing the "illegal" stuff so that it seems acceptable. I remember even when they were a lot more strict e.g. with drinking and no sex before marriage, it all still went on. From gay meet ups to sex in hotel rooms etc.

You're lulled into a false sense of security as it seems like everything's accepted. in the 'Dubai bubble'. It's easy to forget that it can go very very wrong and burst at any moment if the wrong person reports you, usually an Emirati local. The Authorities don't really want things like this reporting to them as they have to do something about it and get bad publicity. They are happy for the Westeners to live their western life as long as it doesn't overlap with their lives.

The girls mother in this case is thoroughly evil.
I don't know how she can look at herself in the mirror.

Because her daughter probably told her she wasn’t comfortable doing it (to shift blame) but it stopped short of rape. Or she told her mother he raped her but doesn’t want to go through the ordeal of medical examinations and court proceedings etc.

Much easier to report from a safe distance and watch his punishment play out in the press.

I know! She’s awful.

@Sceptical123 There’s no real suggestion her daughter hinted at being unwilling.

From what’s been reported online the mother saw flirtatious texts between the two of them reliving their sexual exploits, which would indicate she was aware her daughter was likely to have been a willing participant.

Personally I don’t think she believes her daughter didn’t give full and free enthusiastic consent and I don’t think she’s ever claimed that. I think she’s just massively upset and angry that it happened and wanted to punish them, as well as keep him away from her daughter.

I know many families who would have reacted badly too - and not because they think their daughter was pushed into it but because they’re horrified at the idea of their unmarried daughter a. Having sex and b. Having sex with someone from a particular background - in this case Black.

I think where she’s a bit different is she focused the punishment on the male teen involved and did in quite a public way,
whereas many similar families would have went harder on their own daughter, kept it to themselves and not went after the boy directly.

Many of the Asian girls I grew up with in my late teens/early 20s made sure they didn’t get caught with Black men. They said they couldn’t even imagine what would happen if they were caught. I’d ask them what exactly would happen and they would just say it’s not even a thing they can dwell on.

Why the need to remove blame from the mother? There’s no suggestion that the daughter did this.

One of my ex colleagues who is Muslim went on holiday to Dubai as a single man and had a great time, probably sleeping around and clubbing and partying but definitely lots of alcohol and drug abuse but as he didn’t get caught he just had fun.

I’ve also known families who are British Asian who lived in Dubai and had a great time.

Re both of these it’s the same as with westerners, as long as you don’t get into trouble then you’re given a free pass. The Emirati/Westerners in Dubai told my ex colleague where he could go to have fun. He also looked Western.