All Gulf countries are under pressure to stop using child jockeys
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The United Arab Emirates has agreed with the United Nations on a plan to repatriate some 3,000 child camel jockeys from poorer countries.
Help and protection will be offered to boys until they are sent back to their homelands, mainly in Africa and Asia, where they will get further UAE aid.
The UAE banned jockeys aged under 16 and weighing less than 45kg (100lb) nearly a month ago.
A UN official said the plan should be a model for other camel-racing states.
"We understand there are nine Arab countries [involved], but it's worst in the UAE and Saudi Arabia," said June Kunugi of the UN children's fund Unicef.
"That's where there are the largest number of child jockeys."
She added that it was important to check that repatriated jockeys were not simply sent on to other countries, and said the UAE would ban ranchers who did this from racing.
Following successful tests, the UAE plans to use robot jockeys in place of the boys.
Repatriation package
More than 10m dirhams ($2.7m) will be spent on the plan, an interior ministry spokesman told the Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity.
Planned measures he listed include:
- counting and registering all child jockeys in the country
- repatriating all those currently in the UAE
- paying them an allowance for two years back in their own countries
- placing any former child jockeys without families under Unicef care in their homelands.
Unicef plans to work, in particular, with the governments of Pakistan, Sudan, Bangladesh and Mauritania under the agreement.
It says it is concerned at the "exploitation and abuse" of children from those regions. Of the 3,000 estimated jockeys, 2,800 are aged below 10.
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