DUBAI // Police are launching a campaign against cross-dressing women.
The Government says boyat - loosely translated as tomboys - are indulging in a dangerous practice.
Officials from the police and the Community Development Authority said yesterday they would work together on plans to combat boyat.
"The security awareness administration at Dubai Police is currently planning the launch of campaigns targeting transsexuals, boyat, domestic violence and sexual harassment," police said in a statement.
Fears about boyat first surfaced in 2008, when Dubai Police called on the Government to carry out research into the trend.
Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the chief of Dubai Police, at the time denounced the practice, blaming co-educational schooling and calling on the Ministry of Social Affairs to determine the cause and extent of the problem.
Major Mohammed al Muhairi, the director of the criminal awareness department at Dubai Police, said yesterday: "The important issue is that along with the launch of the campaign, warnings have to be set for such activities and clear punishments have to be put in place.
"We are also collecting data on sexual harassment cases against youths to identify who are the most victimised, and then campaigning to them and raising their awareness to their rights.
"The campaigns will target youths and be divided into four segments covering transsexuality, boyat, broken families and sexual harassment. We are co-ordinating with the Ministry of Social Affairs and will be launching it soon."
Boyat met news of the campaign with indifference. They said they were already the target of similar efforts on school campuses and elsewhere in public.
"I didn't become a boyah because of something at school or because I met a boyah in a social gathering," said a 20-year-old Emirati woman, who declined to be identified by anything more than a nickname, Kool Boyah. "I am a boyah because of what happened at home."
Universities and radio and TV programmes regularly discuss this subculture, often saying parents are not involved enough with their daughters as they hit their turbulent teenage years.
"We are stigmatised and misunderstood," Kool Boyah said, adding she was abused by a male relative as a child. "I wanted to be tough and appear so through my choice of tomboyish clothes and attitude."
Boyat often wear masculine attire under their the abaya and shayla in public.
The phenomenon is also found in other Gulf states, with blogs, websites, online discussion groups and Facebook groups devoted to the movement.
Dr Alia Ibrahim, a family counsellor and life coach who has studied the issue, said "the reasons for the development of such behaviour are to rebel or to stand out, or even to change their identity".
Misguided sexual orientation, social differentiations between males and females, multiple marriages of the father and sexual assaults or harassment also contributed, Dr Ibrahim said.
According to Islamic tradition, it is forbidden for men and women to act like the opposite sex. Such behaviour is considered a deviance from God's plan and from nature.
"Men likening themselves to women and women to men, whether in clothing or the way they talk, walk or in their demeanour and appearance, is despised by any person whose nature has not been corrupted," a Friday sermon warned last year.
DUBAI // Public decency laws need to be reformed so that punishments can more accurately reflect the severity of the offence, several judges have said.
Sentencing guidelines for such offences leave no room for discretion, they said, warning that a misinterpreted hand gesture could lead to an expatriate being deported.
This week a senior British diplomat set out to educate his country's citizens about how to stay on the right side of the law.
Robert Tinline, the director of consular services at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, visited pupils at Gems Academy in Al Barsha South for a presentation on how to stay out of trouble with authorities - part of a nationwide drive to educate Britons about UAE laws.
However, judges say the enforcement of some of those laws - particularly those surrounding public decency - can create additional problems for expatriates.
While sentencing guidelines for more serious crimes allow judges discretion in weighing the facts of a particular case, guidelines for minor crimes concerning public decency often force them into overly harsh sentences.
"An expatriate who has committed an offence such as raising his hand in a bad gesture should be punished, but not by destroying his chances of returning to this country to make a living," one lower court judge said. More serious crimes such as theft were not punished by deportation, he pointed out.
Public indecency is grouped together with sexual assault as a crime of honour by the UAE Penal Code. An amendment to the code in 2005 made deportation mandatory for expatriates found guilty of such crimes.
"This amendment was put in place because UAE law is built on Sharia," Dr Ali al Jarman, a managing partner at Prestige Advocates, said. Dr al Jarman said that under Sharia, sexual assault included any incident involving physical contact of a person's Awra, or "private area". For a man, that is anywhere between the navel and knees. For women, the area extends to her whole body apart from her face and hands.
Those definitions can easily lead those expatriates who are unfamiliar with UAE laws into trouble.
For instance, couples who showed intimacy in public, regardless of how innocent, would face a mandatory sentence of deportation if convicted.
Offences include adultery, consensual sex, inappropriate gestures and signs, kissing, touching, and intimate movements, according to another judge. Sentences range from a month in prison, in addition to deportation, to death.
In one case, the judge said, he was compelled to deport a man who had been approached and seduced by a cross-dresser.
The man kissed the cross-dresser before discovering that his seducer was a man. After kicking the cross-dresser out, the man found he had been robbed and reported it to police. He was then charged with consensual sex and deported, while the thief was never caught.
"The law is in need of revision," the second judge said. "We hope suspects deny charges and insist on their innocence [so we can avoid] a verdict of deportation and rule a lack of evidence," he said.
The law on minor crimes should give judges the chance to evaluate the facts and circumstances of a particular case, then decide whether deportation was appropriate, said a third judge, who works in the lower courts.
Sentencing guidelines for more serious crimes already allow such discretion. "The broadness of the law gives us space to consider the facts and change the charge according to what is presented to us," said a higher court judge.
Another lower court judge called for the law to take into account the UAE's diversity.
Weather is likely to turn harsher as the Met department forecasts temperatures in excess of 47 degrees Celcius across most parts of the country in the next two days.
The National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) expects strong Southwesterly winds kick up dust and heat in much of the country starting Tuesday.
The combination of wind and dust will result in higher temperatures during day and more humidity during nights.
The temperatures recorded on Monday in much of the Western areas was 42 degrees while 41 degrees was recorded in Dubai, however, it is likely to rise up to 5 degrees with maximum temperature expected to hover around 47 degrees Celcius.
A maximum humidity of around 90 per cent is expected around the next two days.
