Dubai: A wife who was regularly beaten by her husband has been reunited with her family in Egypt thanks to the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (GDRFA.)
“We helped her to cancel her visa to allow her to travel back home because her husband refused to allow her to go home and kept torturing her,” Major General Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, Director-General of the GDRFA, said.
He investigated the case and coordinated with the court and the police.
Doaa Abdul Azim, aged 32, said she got married in September 2012 and moved to the UAE. Her Egyptian husband worked for a government department.
“My husband brought me here on a residency visa but he never got my visa stamped in my passport and because of that I became an illegal resident. From the first day I came here he started abusing me, beating me up and insulting me for no reason. My husband used to beat me until I lost consciousness. The first time my husband beat me up was on the third day of my marriage,” she told Gulf News.
Doaa returned to Egypt last week and said she was happy to be home.
Doaa recalled she was with her husband and his friends at The Dubai Mall when he beat her in public near the fountain and then pulled her by her jacket to the parking area.
“People were looking at me in astonishment,” she said.
She said her husband used to beat her until she collapsed and then take her to a private hospital — where he told staff she had fallen down the stairs.
“I was scared and new in the country and I did not know what to do at that time,” she said.
Doaa said that after 40 days, with the help of her neighbours, she managed to go to a police station.
“I went to the police station each time my husband beat me and the police used to send me to a government hospital to get a medical report,” she said.
She said she asked the police to help her go back to Egypt but they told her not to come to them again because she was an illegal resident and could be arrested.
Doaa said she stopped going to the police despite the abuse because she was afraid she would be jailed.
Agony
She said that she filed two cases against her husband and he was sentenced to one year in jail, a Dh5,000 fine for beating and abusing her and a month in jail and a Dh1,000 fine in another case.
Her husband is still at large. An arrest warrant has been issued against him as well as a travel ban. He has been living in the country illegally since December 2012 because his employer failed to renew his visa because of the cases against him.
“Despite this I was not able to leave the country without my husband’s approval,” she said.
Doaa said that she approached the residency department and was told that her husband needed to get her residency visa stamped in her passport or show up at the residency department to cancel her visa.
“My husband never showed up at the GDRFA because he was wanted by the police over bounced cheques and because of the jail sentence for beating me,” she said.
“I approached the Egyptian Consulate to help me go to my country to escape my husband’s abuse but I was told by them that they could not do anything,” she said.
She said her husband beat her day and night and she had no place to go or any money to feed herself.
Doaa said that she approached the GDRFA in Dubai to ask for help again.
She said the residency department finally cancelled her visa.
“I was stuck here and I had no clue what to do until I was given a helping hand from the Dubai residency department who put an end to my agony,” she said.
She said she has now filed for divorce.
