Dubai: A girl who discovered her father had placed a travel ban on her at the airport was eventually able to go for her school trip after a top official managed to convince her father.
The unnamed girl was in tears at Dubai International Airport when she was spotted with her mother during an inspection visit by Major General Mohammad Al Merri, director-general of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai.
The girl and her mother were at passport control when they discovered that the father had placed a travel ban on her, stemming from an ongoing divorce case and family dispute.
I was walking in the airport when I saw a mother and her daughter looking sad ... they couldn’t travel with the other students on a school trip as the father banned his daughter from travelling.
The mother told Maj Gen Al Merri she was trying to travel with her daughter for a school trip but the passport control officer informed them her husband had obtained a travel ban on the daughter and she could not travel.
“I was walking in the airport when I saw a mother and her daughter looking sad. On the other side of passport control, two schoolgirls were waiving at them, but with sad faces too. The mother and her daughter couldn’t travel with the other students on a school trip as the father banned his daughter from travelling,” Maj Gen Al Merri said.
“The mother was trying to convince her daughter to return back home. I spoke with them to know what the problem was and decided to solve their problem.”
Maj Gen Al Merri contacted the father and convinced him to allow his daughter to travel on his personal assurance.
Despite the father initially refusing to let his daughter travel, he eventually agreed to let his daughter travel with her mother for the school trip.
The girl’s nationality and her age weren’t disclosed by the GDRFA official.
Maj Gen Al Merri called on fathers who have a dispute with their ex-wives to keep their children out of the dispute and not to make them suffer.
