UAE | Housing & Property
Lone women's shelter wants official status
Dubai's only shelter for women in trouble is asking for formal government recognition and also calling for a special centre for abused children.
- By Diaa Hadid, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 October 17, 2004
Dubai's only shelter for women in trouble is asking for formal government recognition and also calling for a special centre for abused children.
The Jumeirah based shelter, which is in a villa, is run by three UAE nationals, Sharla Musabah, Margaret Alia Grieny and Lina Mustafa. They describe it as a "shelter run by Muslim women intending to help women in trouble."
Margaret says more than 50 women have passed through the shelter, most staying for two to three months. "It's a stepping stone for women," she says, "a place they can lay their head at night while they get themselves together."
The shelter can accommodate 20 women comfortably and 30 if mattresses are laid on the floor.
Sharla says women come to the shelter for many reasons. Some are fleeing violent situations. Others face financial difficulties. Some women seek the shelter after persecution for converting to Islam against their family's wishes.
Some women are directed to the centre through the police's human rights department. Others find out by word of mouth.
Those women include Jameela, a housemaid whose employers suddenly moved to the United States, leaving her without a home or salary.
There is also Aisha, cheated by her sponsors, divorced and unable to work while she raises her daughter. She is waiting to organise her visa back to Ethiopia to "start a new life."
There are some shelters run by consulates for women, but they are open only to nationals from their countries. The Jumeirah shelter's organisers want to tell more women about the shelter, but say there is little they can do without regular funding and licensing.
"This city is growing at a fierce pace," Margaret says. "There are people who've come looking for work and they've been duped, like housemaids and forced into prostitution... They don't have anywhere to go."
While the shelter's running costs are covered by fundraising and benefactors, Margaret says to advertise their services to more women, they need government recognition and regular, guaranteed income.
The women have been lobbying to be placed under the Al Maktoum Foundation or be directly licensed by the police human rights department.
"We have proof that there's a need," Margaret says, "and it's a full time job to lobby. I'm a mother of six and my main concern is the women not fundraising or lobbying."
They hope with the police now sending cases, the women can prove "there is a need" for the shelter.
In the past six months about 50 children have passed through her home as she and another friend, Yasmine Wazir, try to repatriate the children to their home countries or find a safe place for them.
Sharla is asking government authorities to seriously think about opening a special shelter for children. They would have somewhere to go, she says, and then police and courts can send the children there instead of "back home to very high risk situations."
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