Dubai: A troubled Pakistani mother is pleading with the authorities that she and her three children be allowed to return home after her husband allegedly abandoned them.
“We have overstayed for more than an year as our residence visas expired last July. The first direct consequence of that was me losing my job and then my children being ousted from school, one by one. But worse was to come this year when my husband left us all of a sudden,” said Fouzia Shahid. The 29-year-old last worked as an office assistant-cum-bus conductor at the Little Flower English school in Hor Al Anz for a monthly salary of Dh1,200.
“Even when we were together, my husband only took care of the accommodation. He would hand me just Dh10 a day for household expenses. My entire salary would go towards footing my children’s school fees which was discounted as I was a staff [at the school],” said Fouzia, surviving on handouts and confined for the last two months with her children, Hussain, 10, Aroosa, 9 and Hassan, 7, to a small room in a shared, rundown villa in Satwa.
The family apparently fell on hard times when Fouzia’s Dubai-born and raised husband of close to 16 years, allegedly locked them out of their Hor Al Anz home and disappeared. “We were forced to stay at a friend’s house before moving to the place where we are currently staying, but not once has he [the husband] cared to take us back or done anything to sort out our papers,” said the lady from Pakistan’s Sialkot district.
“I knocked on several doors to get our visas cancelled or amended but nothing came out of my efforts as we are on my husband’s sponsorship.” Fouzia’s husband works in a maintenance firm and lives with his parents in Hamriya. When XPRESS contacted him, he claimed that Fouzia left on her own.
Dr Riaz Hussain Laang, the Community Welfare Attache at the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai, whom Fouzia contacted recently, told XPRESS, “After understanding the whole situation, I had, in consultation with the Consul General, written a letter, citing to the officials that she needs help and assistance in being transferred back to Pakistan.”
