I thought Dubai was the safest place in the world… I can’t believe I was so foolish. So many are lured by the glamorous lifestyle but the night I was attacked, and what happened when I tried to get help, prove its dark side

When I first moved to Dubai, I was an early adopter of the city’s ‘Wow, it’s so safe here!’ mindset.

It didn’t take long to get into the habit of casually leaving my handbag on the table on nights out. When a colleague gave me his old TV, he put it on the back seat of my car, where it stayed for a week without being stolen.

I took to walking home alone from a night out if I couldn’t hail a taxi – a risk I wouldn’t take in any other city.

Looking back, I feel angry that I ever assumed low rates of petty crime meant lack of serious crime too. I now feel foolish that I ever equated my personal safety with replaceable possessions. After all, many men respect objects more than women – as I learned to my cost.

Within eight months, I was subjected to sexual assault by a stranger – an attack that reflected my mistaken belief that such things just didn’t happen in the UAE, a view that is widely held to this day.

On that particular evening, after my job as a magazine editor, I had a quick drink at a popular pub, before attending a short film festival in an art gallery. When I decided to go home, I stepped outside into the busy, slightly seedy Bur Dubai neighbourhood and every taxi I attempted to hail already had a passenger.

The weather was pleasant, so I started walking, more worried my shoes would give me blisters than I was about my safety. After all, home was only a couple of miles away in a straight line along the usually busy Mankhool Road.

‘I was subjected to sexual assault by a stranger – an attack that reflected my mistaken belief that such things just didn’t happen in the UAE, a view that is widely held to this day,’ writes GEORGIA LEWIS

But at past 11pm, I noticed there wasn’t much traffic. Not that this made me feel vulnerable – I was glad to have the city to myself. Dressed pretty conservatively in a knee-length dress, opaque tights, my shoulders and cleavage covered, I wasn’t feeling self-conscious.

When I spotted a man sitting alone at a bus stop, I did wonder why he was sitting there when the buses stopped running at 10pm but I still wasn’t concerned. Maybe the sixth sense that had always served me so well had dulled in so-called ‘safe’ Dubai.

I soon found out exactly why he was there.

As I walked past, he stuck one of his feet in front of me, trying to trip me over. I come over very Australian when my defences are up and I snapped, ‘Hey, watch it, mate!’

He started walking alongside me, so I quickened my pace. This was when the fear kicked in. My subconscious started taking notes: ‘Short, dark skin, slightly overweight, bald on top, black hair and moustache…’

He kept up with me and suddenly put an arm around my shoulder, forcing me off the footpath. He didn’t say a word. I yelled, ‘What are you doing? Get off!’ but there was still no reaction from him.

We collapsed on to a lonely, near-dead shrub. On the way down, he put one hand down the neckline of my dress, the other up my skirt, and he started tugging at my tights, still deathly silent. This is when the fight-or-flight adrenaline took hold and I became hyper-focused on getting away.

The shrub propping us up, I screamed, ducked under his arm and somehow freed myself from his grip. He was paunchy and not much taller than all 5ft 1in of me, so I managed to extract myself pretty quickly.

‘The attack definitely made me more cautious. A lot of my friends lived in the same neighbourhood and we would be careful to walk home in groups’

As I started running towards my place, he ran in the opposite direction towards an apartment block known for housing so-called bachelors – the men who come to Dubai for work, but don’t earn enough money to bring their families over.

As I was running, I looked down and realised he’d drawn blood when he scratched my chest, and that my tights were torn. In shock, the whole incident felt like an out-of-body experience. I hadn’t yet registered how much danger he had placed me in, so instead of feeling angry or vulnerable, I just felt numb.

I called my housemate, who was waiting outside for me when I got home a few minutes later. He asked if I wanted him to try and find my attacker but I said there was no point, he had probably disappeared into the apartment block already. That’s when I burst into tears.

If I hadn’t managed to break free, my attacker presumably would’ve tried to rape me, at the very least. It was certainly dark and deserted enough that he stood a good chance of not being caught, even if the skyscrapers of Dubai were only about half a mile away.

It was a chilling thought, particularly as no one had turned up when I screamed.

I talked it over with my housemate with a cup of tea. I then binned the torn tights and after a long, hot shower, a painful application of Dettol to the scratches on my chest, attempted to sleep.

Feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, I called the police the next morning. It went badly. An amateur Perry Mason type answered the phone and bombarded me with questions. ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ ‘If you really screamed, why did nobody help you?’ ‘Had you been drinking alcohol?’ ‘What were you wearing?’ ‘Are you sure you didn’t know this man?’ ‘Are you making this all up?’

After about ten minutes of this nonsense, I told him he was wasting my time and hung up. Unfortunately, calling the Australian consulate for assistance didn’t go any better.

The woman who answered the phone cooed sympathetically, before advising me to do nothing, in case I ended up in more trouble than my attacker.

At the time, I was aware of UAE rape cases that had gone to court, where the defendant had been acquitted and the victim ended up being charged with either consensual sex out of wedlock or making a false accusation. And there was always talk of foreign women being taken less seriously if they reported a rape. It didn’t occur to me I’d be facing a similar risk.

‘Friends and family implored me to return to Australia, but I was genuinely enjoying life in Dubai, staying in the UAE for almost five more years’

I was completely dumbfounded when she ended the call by cheerfully telling me to pop into the consulate for a coffee any time.

I felt seriously let down, but then another friend got in touch. She too had been attacked and, while her attacker was never caught, she was able to report her assault to a senior officer called Major Najeeb.

I made an appointment and was relieved when he agreed I did the right thing by reporting the attack and apologised for the ridiculous interrogation I received when I called the police.

I was assigned a lovely Omani detective, giving him as detailed a description of my attacker as possible, considering how poorly lit the stretch of road was. He then did a couple of stakeouts in his car on the road where I was attacked, but we knew the search was a needle in a haystack, and my assailant was never caught.

Friends and family implored me to return to Australia, but I was genuinely enjoying life in Dubai. Being taken seriously by Major Najeeb and the detective helped me get on with my life. This was 2006 and I stayed in the UAE for almost five more years.

The attack definitely made me more cautious though. A lot of my friends lived in the same neighbourhood and we would be careful to walk home in groups.

It is impossible to find accurate, up-to-date statistics on sexual assault in the UAE. Based on my own experiences and those of friends, I am pretty sure that any figures released are artificially low and women are easily lulled into a false sense of security.

Given the restrictions on criticising the government under UAE law, you’re not going to find many ex-pat women prepared to share stories about sexual assault and their attempts to get justice.

‘It is impossible to find accurate, up-to-date statistics on sexual assault in the UAE. Based on my own experiences and those of friends, I am pretty sure that any figures released are artificially low’

I’m very lucky my experience with sexual assault didn’t leave me with years of physical or emotional scars. I only hope Dubai and the UAE put the same effort into modernising sexual assault investigations as they have into updating property purchase and residency visa laws.

Twenty years on, I still feel compelled to ensure other women know that sexual assaults DO happen in Dubai. And I turn into a noisy one-woman crusader whenever someone mentions that such attacks aren’t a problem in the UAE.

The lure of the glamorous, income tax-free lifestyle is understandable. During my time there, I made good money, met my amazing husband in an Abu Dhabi newsroom and had incredible opportunities for work and travel.

So I wouldn’t advise women not to go, but I would tell them to go with their eyes open.