ABSTRACT
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has entered into several bilateral treaties on human trafficking with labour-providing countries such as India, which entered into a treaty with the UAE in 2012. A few months after human trafficking for sex in the UAE hit the headlines, another human rights issue surfaced. The tension between human rights and state security in the UAE is detectable in the development of local human rights organisations. During a visit from the Europe Union human rights delegation in May 2015, Emirates Human Rights Association lobbied for the accuracy of information in international organisations’ reports on human rights in the UAE. However, the UAE authorities were engaged in building the image of the UAE as a socially just and stable state. This image-building included the human rights ranking, which was rapidly picked up in news outlets nationally and regionally.
