- Desert Riders. Directed by Vic Sarin. Vancouver International Film Festival. Visit www.viff.org/festival for complete schedule until Oct. 14.
THE incredible, appalling world of camel racing is the subject of Vic Sarin's new documentary Desert Riders.
Any expectations of Lawrence-of-Arabia-style romanticism are crushed in the opening few scenes, as a gaggle of young boys recount the physical and sexual abuse they received at the camel camps.
"I knew camel racing is a huge sport and very much loved in the Middle East," Sarin said in an interview following its Vancouver Film Festival screening. "But I didn't know what was going on with the other side of it. So we decided we should take a look."
In the United Arab Emirates, camel racing is the sport of kings - literally. Aristocrats spend millions of dollars to buy and raise the camels. But little of that largesse makes its way down to the jockeys, boys who are frequently smuggled into the country from Sudan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
"Human trafficking takes place on so many levels internationally, whether it's for prostitution or slave labour or whatever" Sarin said. "But to bring over these kids in the name of sports? This went for two decades and everyone turned a blind eye."
The boys and their parents are told they'll be well paid, trained and educated. While some of the jockeys are basically kidnapped, many of them are sent away by willing parents. Some of the most haunting interviews in the film are the expressions of their remorse. "The whole thing comes down to poverty. Whether they sold their kids or just gave them away, they expected something in return: money."
The camel breeders hold boys as young as three in what look a lot like prison camps. They're given the bare minimum of food and water to keep their weight down. Some are given injections to stunt their growth. Before they're allowed to get anywhere near a camel they work punishing hours to feed and tend them. The sheer innocence of these boys shines through in the attachments they develop to their steeds, even amidst the brutality of the camps. By the age of six, a boy is a hardened veteran.
The races themselves are dangerous, bizarre affairs, with tiny boys clinging to the huge, powerful animals at great speeds. In Desert Riders, the boys report watching other jockeys become impaled, decapitated, and trampled to death. One says he watched a race organizer deny medical care to an injured boy.
In many of the races, the pack of camels is paced by a tight convoy of luxury SUVs, with their wealthy owners hanging out of the windows and yelling at the racers. It's a startling display of sheer extravagant wealth.
One of the most telling parts of this film is disparity - between the size of the boys and the beasts, between the abject poverty of their homelands and the opulence of the UAE, between those with great power and those with none at all. But it's also in the attitudes of the traffickers, some who show remorse but many of whom really don't think they did anything wrong.
"I think power blinds you sometimes," Sarin said. "Once you have the money and the power, you don't care. You can ignore the other side."
Under international pressure to reform the sport in 2004, the UAE has banned boys from being used as jockeys before they turn 15. It's unclear how much this has simply driven the racing out of sight, but it has lead to the strange sight of camel-racing robots. Yes, you read that right. They are basically remote-control boxes with a mechanical riding crop.
Sarin believes the ban has kept the children out of the races, but knows they are still exploited on the farms. A fund has been set up to compensate former jockeys, but even that money rarely winds up in the hands of the children. Jockeys who make it home alive face a problematic future.
"They were sent back to places where they didn't have a connection because they left so young. They didn't know their parents or even speak the language."
The jockeys are just one facet of the global problem of human trafficking. Driven by poverty and population expansion, there are no easy answers for the kids, parents or government.
"I was really curious who is really responsible for this," Sarin said. "It's a complex issue and we're all guilty."
