5/19/2010 Sex and the City 2 in Abu Dhabi?

Carri…

Sex and the City 2 in Abu Dhabi? Carrie,

this is wrong
There's been little controversy over the setting of Sex and the City
2, despite the UAE's appalling record on women's rights

Nicholas McGeehan
gu ardian.co.u k, Tuesday 1 8 May 2 01 0 1 4 .3 4 BST

l ar ger | smal l er

The poster for Sex and the City 2, which was actually shot in Morocco after the
producers were refused permission to film in the UAE

"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".

Sex and the City 2

Production year: 2010
Country: USA
Directors: Michael Patrick King
Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker
More on this film

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

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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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