https://iclfi.org/pubs/wr/47/fakana
18-year-old British teenager Marcus Fakana was arrested and imprisoned in 2024 “over a consensual holiday relationship with another British tourist who was just months younger than him, a fact he was not aware of at the time” (detainedindubai.org, 7 July 2025). Reports indicate that they hit it off and intended to continue seeing each other when back in London. However, the girl’s mother found out about their relations and upon returning to the UK, reported Fakana to the authorities in the UAE where he still remained. He was sentenced to 1 year in a Dubai prison for breaking the country’s age of consent laws, which deem consensual sexual activity with anyone under 18 a criminal offence, regardless of the circumstances. When interrogated, Fakana said it didn’t occur to him to think about the girl’s age since they were in the same school year. And rightly so. Moreover, the age of consent in Britain is 16!
Fakana’s case was met with an outpouring of sympathy, especially amongst youth in London and especially in the black community. The case highlighted how youth who break social and sexual mores face even more scrutiny and hate when they come from marginalized communities. Fakana’s family waged a campaign to the British government, calling on their local MP, then Foreign Secretary David Lammy, to put pressure on the Emirati monarchy to pardon their son. Lammy, a black establishment man, while promising that Fakana would be given “all the full support available,” also scolded the young man for not following the rules of other countries.
After a long ordeal as well as financial hardship for the family, Fakana was eventually given a royal pardon. Three months after returning to the UK, he tragically died in a car accident. We remember Marcus Fakana as a youth who lost valuable time of his short life for accidently offending the conservative sensibilities of an arch-reactionary monarchical state.
