A sports program investigating the exploitation of children as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates
Guided by a human rights worker, the HBO team used a hidden camera to document slavery and torture in secret desert camps where boys under the age of five were trained to race camels, a national sport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The half-hour investigative report exposed a carefully hidden child slavery ring that bought or kidnapped hundreds of young boys in Pakistan and Bangladesh. These boys were then forced to become camel jockeys in the UAE. The report also questioned the sincerity of U.S. diplomacy in pressuring an ally, the UAE, to comply with its own stated policy of banning the use of children under 15 from camel racing.
For HBO: Joseph Perskie, producer; Bernard Goldberg, correspondent; David Higgs, field producer; Ultan Byrne, editor; Bryant Gumbel, anchor; Nick Dolin, coordinating producer; Kirby Bradley, senior producer; Ross Greenburg and Rick Bernstein, executive producers.