Dubai’s ruling family says a legal case filed against it in Miami in the United States for allegedly enslaving thousands of young camel jockeys is without foundation. The law suit accuses Dubai’s ruler, his brother Hamdan and 500 others of being involved in trafficking and enslaving young children from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Mauritania.

The case alleges that tens of thousands of boys as young as three were kept in poor conditions against their will and forced to take part in camel races. The Dubai family say they have overhauled the sport, banning the use of child jockeys and have been helped by Unicef in providing a rehabilitation programme for the child jockeys. It has been illegal to use children as camel jockeys in the UAE since 1993, but only recently has the law been rigidly enforced. When the new racing season begins in November, remote control robots will ride the camels in place of jockeys.