The grisly reality behind Dubai’s porta potty parties

Monic Karungi tragically died of suicide in 2022 (Picture: BBC)

It’s a grim video, even by today’s deeply disturbing standards of the internet. A woman is standing on the ledge of a window of a high-rise building, while a panicked voice in a foreign language can be heard. The woman appears to jump, arms splayed, falling to a certain death.

Comments supposedly identify the woman as Ugandan ‘influencer’ Mona Kizz, who briefly became the internet’s main character after she allegedly featured in a viral ‘#DubaiPortaPotty’ TikTok video in 2021.

It was a hashtag that acted as shorthand to berate young women in Dubai supposedly seeking a luxury lifestyle at any price. However, a new BBC documentary and podcast series has uncovered the disturbing truth behind both videos and the parties in question.

The reality is far darker, hidden under the bedazzling bright lights of Dubai.

It was true that Mona – real name Monic Karungi – had tragically died by suicide falling from a high-rise building in Dubai, but that was in 2022. The video making the rounds, claiming to show her fall, was not Monic at all. It wasn’t even filmed in the UAE, with the panicked voice heard actually speaking Russian. Tragically, the woman in the video has never been identified.

However, it was merely the first of a catalogue of lies surrounding Monic’s death that journalist and producer Runako Celina discovered when she started researching her story for a new BBC documentary, Death in Dubai and accompanying podcast series of the same name.

Monic moved from Uganda to Dubai at the age of 24 with the hope of finding a new life (Pictures: BBC)

The reporter had been left both fascinated and disturbed by the internet’s reaction not only to the apparent suicide video in 2021, but also another that had gone viral, alleged to be of Monic, who had moved to Dubai in search of a better life.

This video was deeply graphic – a man can be seen defecating in a woman’s mouth – and went viral on TikTok back in 2021, with Monic being attributed as the female involved (although this has not been verified).

What is the Dubia porta potty meme?

‘I’d heard about ‘Dubai porta potty’ videos online for some time,’ Runako explains to Metro. ‘When Monic passed away in 2022, her name had been implicated in an online witch-hunt, and I saw so much misinformation had been spread by commentators online.’

‘Dubai Porta Potty parties’ reference a setting where young women have been taken to Dubai by wealthy men, where they are paid to fulfil often degrading sex acts (Picture: BBC)

Rumours of ‘porta potty parties’ in Dubai were commonplace, but for some reason, it was this specific video that spread rapidly, with the hashtag #DubaiPortaPotty garnering a staggering 450 million views. Prominent TikTok figures made quick reactions to the video, with thousands of comments describing the woman filmed as ‘disgusting’ and asking why she ‘had no shame’. Monic’s Instagram, which is still active, has numerous comments under her photos referencing the video.

While the 2021 viral TikTok is certainly one of the most graphic examples, word of ‘Dubai porta potty parties’ is nothing new. The phrase is bandied about on the internet to describe young, attractive women (typically influencers or OnlyFans models), who are invited over to Dubai by supremely wealthy men, where they are paid to act out a series of fetishes or sexual behaviours. They are typically associated with extreme degradation of the women that take part, with urination and scat play thought to be common practice.

Runako investigating Monic’s suicide (Picture: BBC)

Fetishes and false promises

One British woman, Saint Mullan, claims she was approached on Instagram by a man offering her and a friend £16,000 to fly over to Dubai for a party in exchange for partaking in feet and urination fetishes (the messages have never been independently verified).

Meanwhile, Ukrainian model Maria Kovalchuk was found severely injured on the side of the road in Dubai, with many fearing she may have been a victim of a rowdy Dubai porta potty party (she has since denied this was the case).

Monic had been lured to Dubai by someone she had connected with in Uganda (Picture: BBC)

With Monic, her supposed death was co-opted by the internet and essentially made a meme, a cautionary tale warning young girls from chasing the glossy, influencer lifestyle at the cost of their ‘self-worth’.

‘I think the internet has fostered this culture online where we’re all much more comfortable in commenting on each other,’ Runako says. ‘It also intersects with our obsession with celebrity culture, which now also includes influencers.

‘I don’t think it’s by chance Monic was painted as a glamorous influencer; it feeds into the idea that we can speak about those women in a particular way because they’re fair game.’

The real story

Runako uncovered throughout her two-year investigation that Monic was far from the glamorous influencer people were speaking about. The youngest of 11 children, she had spent most of her life on her family’s farm with her siblings and relatives.

Monic had never left her home country of Uganda before heading to Dubai – and she wasn’t even an influencer; she had fewer than 2000 followers at the time of her death at just 24. New followers flocked to her Instagram posthumously.

Monic’s family farm in Uganda (Picture: BBC)

As Runako discovers, Monic had been lured to Dubai by someone she had connected with in Uganda, who was offering routine, regular work (likely a retail role) in the UAE. While her Instagram showed pictures of her enjoying Dubai and the luxury trappings which make it such a playground for the rich, Monic was actually living in squalid, filthy conditions with around 50 other women, many also from Uganda.

The work she was offered turned out to be a lie, but she was trapped as she was told she had to pay back the visas and airfare to a different man – Charles Mwesigwa, known locally as ‘Abbey’ – who effectively worked as a pimp (a man Runako learns previously worked as a bus driver in East London) taking numerous girls to high-end nightclubs to get sex work.

Mwesigwa vehemently denies these accusations in the documentary, but is also filmed claiming he can provide women to do ‘pretty much anything’ for rich clients at Dubai sex parties.

As Runako speaks to women who managed to flee Dubai, or those who knew Monic, she discovers many had tried to escape once they learned the reality upon arrival. While they tried to reach out to local authorities, their pleas for help were mostly ignored.

A community exploited

It was the racial element of the story that left Runako, herself a Black woman, surprised.

Runako conducted a two-year-long investigation into the circumstances that led to Monic’s death, and this was documented by the BBC (Picture: BBC)

Rising youth unemployment in Uganda means many young people are looking to head abroad to secure work, with many heading to the Gulf States, mostly through safe, legal channels (it’s thought that Ugandans who have headed to Dubai and other parts of the UAE contribute $1.2 billion in tax revenue to Uganda). Dubai has a significant Ugandan population, estimated to stand at between 70,000 and 100,000.

Despite this, Runako found many women faced with explicit racism: ‘So many told them that they were requested to do certain sexual or fetish acts, and it felt like it was expected of them as African women,’ she explains. ‘That horrified me, and it was very difficult to hear.’

One of those women, whom Runako speaks to in the documentary, is Lexi*, who claims she was trafficked into Dubai from Uganda through an illegal prostitution ring. She describes clients offering her thousands to urinate on her, beat her, or to eat faeces. She goes on to add that some clients would pay up to AED 15,000 (£3,000) for humiliating ‘fetish’ acts.

Monic’s mother, photographed here, continues to mourn her death (Picture: BBC)

Runako adds that hearing these sorts of gruesome details spread online and made light of in Dubai porta potty memes only adds to the grief of Monic’s family.

‘It’s almost like a double death,’ she says. ‘They have to deal with the experience of the death of their child, and then this reputational death on the internet.’

The family are also said to be doubtful that Monic took her own life, as they feel it was so beyond her character.

Sadly, this tragedy does not just end with Monic’s suicide. Runako also hears about Kayla, another Ugandan woman in a similar situation to Monic’s, who died by suicide the year before.

Kayla’s family were able to have her body repatriated so it could be buried at home, as per Ugandan tradition. However, Monic’s family did not have that opportunity. Instead, her body lies in an unmarked grave in a Dubai cemetery.

The documentary raises awareness of the real impact of online information (Picture: BBC)

It’s an incredibly moving moment for Runako, who wanted to lay flowers on behalf of Monic’s family. Wiping away tears, she leaves the flowers on the beach near where the young woman died.

Now, Runako is hoping to raise awareness, particularly amongst vulnerable women in African countries, about the dangers of pimps operating illegally in Dubai, and the real impact spreading misinformation online can have.

She is also wants her work to actually gives these women, who can no longer speak for themselves, a voice against the narratives that have been structured around them.

‘I want people to pay attention to the men in this, too,’ Runako adds. ‘As much as I hate using this term, there is a market among men who want to engage in this.

‘The narrative on the internet has been pointing fingers at women, blaming them and shaming them. It’s time that we start asking questions about the men who are powering this industry in the first place.’

The BBC asked Charles ‘Abbey’ Mwesigwa to respond to all allegations made in this film. He responded: ‘These are all false allegations. I’m just a party person who invites big spenders on my tables, hence making many girls flock to my tables. That makes me know many girls and that’s it. Monic died with her passport, meaning no one was demanding her money for taking her. Prior to her death, I hadn’t seen her for over four to five weeks. I knew both girls and [they] were renting with different landlords. If no one in both flats was arrested or any of the landlords, then there was a reason. Both incidents were investigated by the Dubai police, and maybe they can help you.’

‘Death in Dubai: #Dubaiportapotty’ is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. The ‘World of Secrets: Death in Dubai podcast can be downloaded from wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

*Name has been changed.

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