The mother of a six-year-old Filipino girl who was abandoned in the United Arab Emirates has come forward to help her daughter to become a documented citizen.
On May 3, it was reported that the child ‘Fatima’ was abandoned in Ajman when she was a year old. The girl was left in the care of a Pakistani couple and has no record of her birth, no surname, passport, Emirates ID or visa and no proof that she was a Filipino citizen, Gulf News reported.
Two days later, on Sunday, Fatima’s real mother came forward to Gulf News, who managed to track down the Filipina. The mother and daughter were reunited in Al Kamara near Dubai.
The mother, whose identity was withheld, revealed that ‘Fatima’ was actually born on February 15, 2012, making her true age seven and said that her daughter’s real name is Angel.
The mother is married with two teenage daughters in the Philippines, but had an affair with a Filipino man in Dubai. The mother got pregnant and gave birth to Angel in a local Dubai hospital but used a marriage certificate of her and her husband, who is still in the Philippines.
“My boyfriend left me before the birth and within a month of having Angel, I found it too difficult to support both her and my family in the Philippines because I was the only provider,” she explained.
The mother said she previously stayed in the UAE illegally until she took advantage of an amnesty, which helped her get legal status. She now has a six-month job seeker’s visa and once she gets a permanent visa and an Emirates ID, she will go and get her daughter’s birth records from the hospital.