Dubai: Five-year-old Sri Lankan-Filipino girl, Elina, who reunited with her father last week after six months of separation, is now ready to make a fresh beginning in Sri Lanka, her dad told XPRESS from Colombo.
“She is coping well with her new set of friends. People are curious of her looks at first because she looks more Filipino than Sri Lankan, but they all gradually become more welcoming.
“The fact that she speaks Sinhalese is helping,” he said of Elina who despite having never gone to school speaks a slew of languages including some Arabic, Tagalog, Tamil and Bengali.
She accompanied her father to the island country on June 29 after he was deported following a reduced jail term for credit card debts, overstaying illegally and fathering a child out of wedlock.
Elina, who turned five in March, slept rough in parks and staircases with her unemployed dad, helping him at odd jobs after he lost his job in 2009. Her mother, a Filipina apparently facing a ‘life-time entry ban’, left the UAE three months after Elina’s birth.
On January 16, XPRESS reported how the girl’s miseries were compounded after she became homeless following her father’s arrest for staying illegally. Within days, the Human Rights Department of Dubai Police reacted, finding Elina foster care at the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children.
The father, meanwhile, was sentenced to a year in jail as it emerged Elina was born out of wedlock. However, that ruling, following an appeal by the father, was overturned on April 17 and his sentence was shortened to three months. He was finally deported last month, accompanied by Elina after both were issued ‘outpasses’ by the Sri Lankan Consulate in Dubai and handed tickets sponsored by two well-wishers.
“I was lucky I got help from so many quarters, including Dubai Police, Dubai Foundation for Women and Children, Sri Lanka Consulate and two Sri Lankan well-wishers who sponsored our air tickets. I can’t thank them just enough,” he added.
However, he said their rehabilitation is taking time. “I need to get Elina’s passport issued, get her registered as a Sri Lankan national officially and then send her to school. All this needs money and I am as good as broke,” added the father desperate for work.
