Dubai: The case of a boy ‘found’ by the woman who actually abandoned him near Reef Mall on September 7 is eerily similar to another incident Gulf News reported on earlier this year.
A Pakistani man in Ajman approached Gulf News in April to say he had been left to look after a six-year-old Filipina girl named Fatima, whose guardians, a Filipina and another Pakistani man, had fallen upon hard times.
The guardians were not the biological parents of Fatima but had looked after her for five years after her real mother abandoned her in Dubai.
Gulf News ran an appeal to find the real mother, who was still living in Dubai, in order to get the girl documented so that she could attend school.
After a few days, the real mother came forward and agreed to get the child documented.
The child was reunited with her mother in Karama and this is where the girl learnt that her real name was Angel, and that she was eight-years-old not six as had previously been led to believe.
Gulf News helped the mother locate the medical records to prove she gave birth to the child in Dubai, despite the hospital in Dubai being long since shut down.
The child still doesn’t have a birth certificate however, therefore can’t apply for a passport, visa or Emirates ID to attend school. The mother needs to get a no objection certificate from her husband in the Philippines to acknowledge that he is the father of the child.
The mother used her marriage certificate with her husband in order to have the child in a Dubai hospital. However, the real father of the child is not her husband. And now the child is at an impasse, where she either waits on her mother to admit the affair to her husband, or waits for the mother to get a DNA test from Dubai Police, which might result in a conviction.
In the meantime, Fatima is still not in school and remains in the unofficial care of the Pakistani man in Ajman.
Gulf News has approached the Philippines Consulate, who know about this case, but they say they are still waiting on paperwork from the Philippines before the child can be issued a birth certificate.
It had been Fatima’s dream to start school this September.
