2 abandoned babies surviving on charity

Their Indonesian mother is unemployed. Their father, a Filipino electrician, allegedly left the country for greener pastures in Doha, Qatar… and never returned. 

 

Living alone in a villa [earlier inhabited by several Indonesian housemaids and illegal residents who left the country utilising the amnesty scheme], the woman has been desperately trying to arrange food and shelter for her two boys.

 

She says her husband has stopped calling his family from Doha… in fact he has begun to reject her repeated calls to his mobile number. The hospital bill for the delivery of the two babies is unpaid, so she cannot get a birth certificate so she can leave the country with her children.

 

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, she said that she came to work in Ajman.  “I fell in love with a smart electrician, who was living close to my accommodation in Ajman. We got married.”

 

Showing a marriage certificate apparently issued and attested by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines on 6th August 2010, she said that she and her husband got married on November 25, 2009.

 

Their two children were born at a hospital in Sharjah.

 

Now her romance and married life has ended in fiasco… the man who loved her once and fathered two babies cannot be traced. He left the UAE in May 2011 to work for a Doha-based company. The woman’s father-in-law, who used to work in Abu Dhabi, also cannot be traced now.

 

The desperate mother-of-two said her husband loved her and their two babies. ”Even after going to work in Qatar, he used to call up and send Dh1,500 for their family maintenance.” But that was some time ago. “When I contacted the Qatari company where he worked, they gave me his mobile phone number in the Philippines. He just replied once to my mobile phone call and afterwards there is no response from him.”

 

“I am stuck here with the two babies because of my delivery debt to the hospital. I want to go to my home country and live there with the babies. Here they cannot go to school or will be living illegally. I cannot feed them without a job and how long can I survive on charity,” she asked, adding that she has been going regularly to various charity organisations seeking help, but so far nobody has offered her help. She used to earn Dh1,000 a month as a waitress and her electrician husband earned about Dh2,500 per month.

 

“The villa owner has threatened to evict us from the rented room as I cannot pay Dh800 per month rent. Earlier my Indonesian friends used to live in the same villa, sharing the rent, but they all left the country through the amnesty,” she said.

 

Showing the family photograph, she said her husband may never come back to her and that she will take care of the babies. “It is my life and I want to live peacefully in my country. My family of six will accept me and my children there. Now  I am stuck here without the birth certificates,” she said.

 

According to hospital sources, the pregnant Indonesian lady was admitted on humanitarian grounds without her health card. The first baby was born there in October 2010 and the second baby was born in the same hospital under same circumstances in March 2012. Her hospital bills include Dh10,580 for the first delivery and Dh16,640 for the second child.

 

“Recently, some kind hearted people have supplied her with milk and grocery,” said Babu, who is helping her.

 

 “We feel really sorry for the family and we give them whatever small amount we can manage,” said a Pakistani labourer, helping the woman.