India
Palakkad native Samad left his family in Dubai, as his wife failed to give birth to a boy for the fourth time. After 12 years, his family is left without any documents or a passport or means to get by.
Dubai: A family of five have been left abandoned by a Keralite in Dubai for 12 years. With hardly any means to get by and no documents to venture out of their home, the stranded family has made an appeal to the man to help them obtain a passport so that they could leave the country.
Fathima from Sri Lanka arrived in Dubai in 1991 in search of a job. She fell in love with a Malayali native Abdul Samad and the two married in Dubai in 1994. Things were going well in their relationship, but when Fathima gave birth to a girl child Samad started to behave differently. Samad began to mentally and physically torture her for giving birth to girls.
The couple now have four girl children. In 2007, when he got to know that the fourth child was also a girl, Samad grew violent at the hospital and left his family. Fathima learnt that Samad went back to Kerala and had married again and had three children. She did not contact her husband thereafter.
Fathima worked as a housemaid and tutored children to earn enough to support her family. Unable to pay rent, she and her family were evicted and were forced to move to a place which put her farther away from her workplace. Unable to commute, she was forced to leave her job as a housemaid and a tutor.
Samad had previously told Fathima that only if she bore a boy, would he obtain passports for the other children. None of the children even have a passport and are unable to leave the country. The children are unable to leave their single-room residence as they do not possess any documents. The daughters desire to venture out of their room and lead a normal life.
Fathima has tutored all her children at home as they could not gain admission into a school. The daughters can read, write and speak four languages.
The children wish that they had an Indian passport and could leave Dubai. However, as per regulations, this is only possible if Samad returns to Dubai the or if he sends a letter from Kerala requesting authorities to grant his daughters an Indian passport by stating that he is unable to travel to Dubai.
Fathima who is unable to contact her estranged husband, sought the help of media to request Samad to send a letter so that her daughters could leave Dubai. In her appeal, she also vowed to not trouble Samad with any other request.
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