DUBAI: An abandoned baby girl was finally reunited with her mum, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) deported several months ago, following exhaustive efforts by the UAE government’s Community Development Authority in Dubai (CDA) to locate her in the Philippines on the basis of a DNA test that positively identified her as the child’s biological mother.
“CDA received the infant several months ago in accordance with the procedures followed for abandoned children to be cared for in the Family Village for Orphans part of the Awqaf and Minors’ Affairs Foundation and we were looking for a suitable alternative family for her to be raised within,” said Dr. Abdelaziz Mohamed Al Hammadi, Chairman of the Selection Committee for foster families in Dubai and director of the family cohesion department in CDA.
He added that they were later on informed by authorities that the baby girl’s DNA matched with that of a Filipina woman who had recently been deported from the Dubai.
This information at hand, CDA moved to locate the mother in the Philippines, reliable sources said.
“This made the girl’s biological mother known and thus opened the hope that the child could live with her mother and in her natural environment,” Al Hammadi said.
He said CDA went to such lengths to unite mother and child because the interest of the baby girl – temporarily named Shamsa, taken from the word “Shams” which means the sun – and ensuring that she is raised in her natural environment with her biological mother was their main motivation.
Thus, he said, serious and urgent efforts by the alternative care staff in CDA were taken for weeks.
Al Hammadi also pointed out the importance of the intensive cooperation of all concerned parties to overcome procedural obstacles “on the top of them, the Philippine Consulate General and the General Department of Punitive & Correctional Establishments of the Dubai police and the Public Prosecution in Dubai.”
“The work took several weeks and a lot of meetings and follow-up and overcoming variety of challenges, and was successfully accomplished when the girls finally travelled to her mother attended by an escort from the Philippine Consulate,” said Al Hammadi who also called for the development of a sustainable solutions suited to the individual situations and circumstances of each child.
Identities of the mother and her child were not released over privacy rights issues.
Abandoned OFW babies top the list of concerns the Philippine embassy and PCG work on round-the-clock. PCG had 10 cases of abandoned OFW babies last year, according to officials.
In Abu Dhabi, the embassy had been successful in repatriating an abandoned OFW baby also last year, who, pending completion of his documents, was kept under care of Universal Hospital.
