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28 March 2024

Umm Obaid gets tottering house... after 20 years

Umm Obaid married when she was only 13 years old. Four years later, her husband divorced her after having three daughters and one son, who later died. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Staff
Umm Obaid of the UAE had waited for nearly 20 years to get her dream house. When authorities finally approved her request, her dream was shattered, for the house was a shattered structure that was full of garbage.
The employee at the Fujeirah Municipality called the 47-year-old Umm Obaid to give her the good news. He told her about the house but gave her no key. When the shocked woman asked for a key, he simply said the house has no door.
Umm Obaid still had some hope until she went to see the house. Her shock was complete as she stared in disbelief at a tottering structure that had no roof, no windows, close to foreign workers accommodation and is full of garbage.
“I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the house….after waiting for nearly 20 years, I get this house which is about to collapse,” she said.
“They told me I just have to do some maintenance to the house but it is clear that no maintenance will restore this house.”
Umm Obaid triggered furor this week when she went on Dubai’s state television and spoke about her ordeal.
The Arabic language daily Emirat Alyoum said its reporter visited the woman on Monday and saw the so-called accommodation granted by the Fujeirah Municipality to a national woman with many children.
Umm Obaid married when she was only 13 years old. Four years later, her husband divorced her after having three daughters and one son, who later died.
She again married a retired Emirati and had two sons from him. Her three daughters have grown up and are now working. Her second husband is also married and most of his Dh12,000 pension goes to his first family of 12.
Umm Obaid, who finished the secondary class, had worked for nearly 21 years at Kalba hospital before she retired last month. The woman says she now needs a house to look after her two little sons.
Reacting to her television interview, head of the legal affairs at the Fujeirah Municipality Abdullah Alakrabi said Umm Obaid had waited for so long on the grounds her present husband has already been given a house.
“Being a second wife does not mean that I should be deprived from a government house and live in a rented house for 16 years….does the Emirati woman have to remain a spinster all her life in order to get a house…I think these laws are an obstacle for woman seeking houses,” Umm Obaid said.
Emirat Alyoum quoted Umm Obaid as saying she had paid Dh30,000 rent per year for a house before she moved to another house owned by a relative. She is now paying Dh12,000 but she says the new house is too small.
“My daughters and their children are at my house most of the time and this means we are 12 in this house which includes only two bed rooms,” she said.
“I have been waiting for 20 years for a government house…I would not mind any house, even one allocated for widows….but to get that house and that treatment is unacceptable and inhuman…when I went to that house,
I was really shocked…no doors, no windows and no roofs…it is also close to workers accommodation and is full of garbage…I went back to the Municipality and they only asked me to wait so they will get permission for maintenance.”
Emirat Alyoum said it had tried many times to get comments from officials at the Fujeirah Municipality but they refused.