Two brothers denied school education in visa muddle

Dubai: Two young brothers are being denied school education because the Dubai Residency Department is refusing to issue them residence visa without the consent of their deported father.

Ali, 10, and his brother Riza, 8, were born in Dubai but have never been to school because they have no residency visa and no birth certificates.

Sakina, mother of Ali and Riza, is desperate to obtain residence visa and birth certificates for her children but has so far been unsuccesful because she needs to obtain a no-objection letter from the father who was deported from the country in 2008 due to criminal cases against him.

“I have no clue where the father of my children is. He abandoned me with my kids since the birth of my younger child,” Sakina told Gulf News.

Major General Mohammad Al Merri, Director General of the General Directorate for Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai, said an NOC from the father is required to allow the mother to sponsor her children. “We cannot give residency to children without the consent of their father,” he said.

He said it is the right of the father to know where his children will live. “The father should approve that the mother can sponsor her children here,” he said.

Both children hold Tanzanian nationality but were born in Dubai.

“My elder son was born at Latifa hospital [previously Al Wasel] and my younger son was born at the Iranian hospital but both of them have no birth certificates,” she said.

The mother said her children have only birth notifications issued from the hospitals.

“I was able to get passports issued for my children using the birth notification,” she said.

Sakina said she tried several times to apply for residency visa for her children in Dubai but her application was rejected.

“I have a good job and I can sponsor my children but the General Directorate for Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai is refusing to issue residence visa for them without a no-objection letter from the father,” she said.

She said she told the residency department officers that she is divorced and she had the custody over her children and that their father left her long time ago and that her children are without school but the officials insisted on the NOC from the father.

“I have no clue from where I will get the no-objection letter from the father if I cannot find him,” she said.

She said that her father travelled to Africa in search of her ex-husband in order to get an NOC but he failed to find him.

“My father spent two months in Africa searching for my ex-husband to obtain an NOC so that I could sponsor my children and obtain birth certificates for them but my father could not find him anywhere,” she said.

Sakina said she is trying since 2008 with the Dubai Residency Department and the health authority to legalise her children’s status in order to help them go to school but in vain.

“I’m suffering day and night when I see my children growing up without school, without ID,” she said.

“I plead to the authorities to help us get out of this difficult phase of our lives.”