Same-sex relationships are criminalised in the UAE under federal and emirate-level legislation, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment. Several tourists and expats have been arrested for same-sex conduct.

The UAE is an absolute monarchy with no free elections, no opposition parties, and no independent press. Criticism of the government or royal family can result in imprisonment.

Women's rights are improving on some metrics but remain constrained by the male guardianship system. Domestic violence protections are weak. Abortion is legal to preserve health or for severe fetal impairment, not on broader grounds.

The UAE legal system functions efficiently for commercial disputes but offers no protection against the state. Rights taken for granted in democratic countries do not exist here.

Not every country is measured on every value. Where the public data doesn't exist, we'd rather tell you than fill the gap with a guess — and UAE / Dubai is one of those cases.

The figure on our other country pages comes from the US Department of Labor's yearly review of what governments are doing about the worst forms of child labour, and that review covers the 131 countries which hold trade preferences with the United States. UAE / Dubai is not one of them, so it is never assessed. Household surveys do measure child labour in some countries outside that system, but they are run in different years with different questions, so a number taken from one of them would not mean the same thing as the tiered assessment used elsewhere on this site. We would rather show nothing than a number that isn't comparable.