A mother’s alleged overstaying of her visa has plunged a family of four into a crisis.
According to a report in Gulf News, the mother has been told she does not exist from the UAE's point of view.
AH, who came to the UAE from Uzbekistan as a tourist 12 years ago, said she was told that nothing can be done to legalise her status because her entry date was never recorded.
Now the family's future depends on dealings between the Uzbekistan Consulate and the Department of Residency and Foreigner's Affairs in Sharjah.
The woman says she came to the UAE on June 16, 1999, arriving at Sharjah International Airport on a one-month tourist visa issued in Ras Al Khaimah. Since that visa expired she has been living in the country illegally.
AH is now a 35-year-old mother-of-two, having married a Pakistani man in 2000 in Dubai.
The couple's nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter hold Pakistani nationality.
The husband was quoted by Gulf News as saying, “My wife's passport was handed to her country's consulate in Dubai in 2000 for renewal but the consulate sent the passport back to her country because she broke their rules by over-staying here," he said.
She never got her renewed passport.
"I need to pay the hefty over-staying fines for my wife in order to send her back home where she can get a new passport and return on my sponsorship," he said.
The husband said that he and his children could not live without their mother.
He said that he also approached the General Directorate for Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Ras Al Khaimah but he was told that there is no visa issued in her name or passport number.
He said he also failed to obtain Pakistani nationality for his wife because she does not have her own passport.
Officials at Sharjah Airport and at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Sharjah and in Ras Al Khaimah said that they are aware of the ordeal.
"The husband presented us a copy of his wife's passport that showed that she entered the country on June 16 1999, but we cannot find any information about her in the immigration system," an official was quoted as saying by Gulf News.
The official said the mother needed to pay the fine for overstaying otherwise she will face a life ban and will not be able to enter the country again.
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