Cost of the global financial crisis lingers on

Dubai: The global recession robbed people not just of their savings but of priceless human relationships.

It left in its wake broken family ties, ruined friendships, and strained relations between parents and children as people struggle with debt, unemployment, or salary cuts.

"The crisis has ruined our family," Ciella, who left the Philippines for a better job in Dubai last year, said, refusing to give her full name. "If not for the need of money we could have made it as a family."

As the global economic crisis drove up the cost of living Ciella and her husband could not make ends meet with their salaries to raise four children.

The financial crisis has also strained relationships between parents and children as they struggle to adjust to declining living standards. Every night before falling asleep, IH, a single mother of two, prays she does not wake up. The middle-aged Arab woman was fired during the crisis. Five months of unemployment forced her to accept another job with a 60 per cent salary cut, she said. "I needed to feed my children, I have lots of bills. As a divorced woman I am the only provider."

The crisis has taken its toll on her and the children as she cut down on family expenses, which affected them psychologically, she said.

"I can't sleep, I am edgy, I lost my smile and — no exaggeration — depression is eating me out. Why? Because I am struggling and can barely survive with debts that I have no clue how to pay back."

The crisis has also left many family men with empty pockets and wounded egos as they struggled to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer able to provide for their families—an essential part of masculinity in traditional cultures.