The General Department of Human Rights in Dubai, in cooperation with the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children, took in a 4-year-old Sri Lankan child after her father was imprisoned in a financial case and left her alone with a neighbour. 

According to the Brigadier Mohammed Al Murr, director of the General Department of Human Rights in the Dubai Police, a Sri Lankan woman came to Dubai Police with a child and asked for their help to find her safe asylum, asserting her inability to care for her.

Brigadier Al Murr noted that after visiting the father in prison, it was found that the girl was born out of wedlock and her mother was a Filipino woman on a visit to the country and stayed in the same house where the man lived with a group of men and women compatriots. The woman reportedly became pregnant and left the country but returned several times until she gave birth in a private hospital in a neighbouring emirate.

A month after the girl was born, the man was sacked and he could not support the girl or her mother. She supposedly had returned to her country, taking all the child’s papers proving her birth.

Al Murr added that the man remained jobless and his residence visa expired. He then was unable to renew it for lack of money, and his debts to the bank reached Dhs18, 000. The bank filed a lawsuit against him and he was consequently imprisoned.

Brigadier Al Murr stressed that the child was admitted to the care of the DFWC, and the father signed an oath to obtain the papers that prove she is his daughter in coordination with the consulate of his country. Authorities also searched the private hospital where the child was born for her papers.(The Gulf today)