OpinionGender This article is more than 13 years oldSex and the City 2 in Abu Dhabi? Carrie, this is wrong
This article is more than 13 years oldNicholas McGeehanThere's been little controversy over the setting of Sex and the City 2, despite the UAE's appalling record on women's rights"What happens after you say 'I do'?" This is the plot-setting teaser posed by heroine Carrie Bradshaw in the trailer for the new Sex and the City 2 movie, to be released on 27 May. Well, if the trailer is anything to go by, you end up in a childless, sexless limbo until one day, over lunch, you and three glamorous friends are offered an all expenses-paid holiday in what the official plot synopsis calls "one of the most luxurious, exotic and vivid places on earth, where the party never ends and there's something mysterious around every corner".
So far, so Sex and the City, but the picture gets a little less alluring when the holiday location is revealed as Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There has been remarkably little controversy over this choice of setting, despite the country's appalling record on women's rights and human rights in general.
In contrast to the image it attempts to project globally, the UAE is a country where human rights are systematically violated and where women are routinely discriminated against.
The situation is bad enough if you are a citizen – your husband has a legal right to beat you and cannot be prosecuted if he rapes you – but it's significantly worse if you are a non-national in a country where racial discrimination is endemic. In one notable example in 2006, a woman went to the police alleging that five men had subjected her to a series of sexual assaults. According to one press report, "due to her conflicting testimonies, the authorities suspected that the woman was a professional sex worker and put her behind bars on charges of adultery". The judge warned the five men not to repeat such violations in the future, but only three were convicted, with sentences of three months in jail and 150 lashes. The woman was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and 150 lashes. Such incidents are not isolated.
A hidden army of domestic workers from India, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia are excluded from the country's labour laws and routinely endure horrific physical, sexual and psychological abuse, not to mention appalling working conditions, which often equate to a life of perpetual servitude punctuated only by whatever sleep is granted to them.
Human Rights Watch has reported domestic workers being beaten with vacuum cleaners, basins, wires, chairs, wooden planks, broomsticks, knives, and iron bars, and the argument that their treatment constitutes slavery under international law is highly persuasive.
In January this year, the United Nations committee on the elimination of discrimination against women delivered unreserved criticism of the UAE's record on women's rights, even going so far as to directly question the UAE delegation on the reasons why the founder of the country's only shelter for abused women had effectively been hounded out of the country and the women formerly under her care transported to a detention centre where at least one took her own life by drinking bleach. The UAE delegation's response was to suggest the shelter had been a front for money laundering.
The makers of Sex and the City 2 had initially hoped to film in the neighbouring emirate of Dubai rather than Abu Dhabi itself, but were refused permission after a copy of the script was submitted to the authorities. Eventually, shooting took place in Morocco (sand: check. Arabs: check). There are now doubts as to whether the completed film will be shown in Abu Dhabi.
This is yet another example of the Janus-faced character of the UAE's rulers. To the outside world they want to portray themselves as progressive (and in Dubai's case their survival depends on that), but internally, their legitimacy to rule still hinges on tribal loyalty and they cannot be seen to abandon what they characterise as Islamic principles.
Domestic opinion aside, and despite the rulers' efforts to formally distance themselves from the film, Sex and the City 2 seems fully on message in terms of the UAE's ongoing legitimisation project which seeks to convince the outside world that the country is a progressive state, friendly to rich tourists and open for business.
The country's rulers believe flashy public relations will always prevail over wishy-washy notions of equality, justice and fundamental rights, and that it is possible to go on violating those rights in the most obscene and flagrant manner, as long as the brand remains untarnished. You can beat women, you can rape women, and you can throw them in jail when they protest, but as long as you dress the country up all shiny and sparkly, and put it in a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, nobody will be all that bothered.
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