After UAE law change, out-of-wedlock babies still in shadows - Yahoo News
Emirates Invisible Children
Maya, 36, plays with her one-year-old undocumented daughter in a dank, overstuffed section of an apartment, subdivided by hinged partitions, that she shares with eight other women, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021. A year after the United Arab Emirates decriminalized premarital sex in a bold expansion of personal freedoms, the law has struggled to fulfill its promise. Unwed mothers may no longer land in jail, but they're caught in bureaucratic limbo, fighting to obtain birth certificates for their babies born in the shadows. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Over a dozen unmarried women huddled in a jail cell south of Dubai last year, locked up for the crime of giving birth, when a guard entered and declared them free.
The incident, described by one of the women, was among the first concrete signs that the United Arab Emirates had decriminalized premarital sex in an overhaul of its Islamic penal code.
But a year later, these unwed mothers remain trapped in limbo, fighting to obtain birth certificates for babies born in the shadows.
A new law that comes into effect in two weeks still does not offer unmarried women a clear path to acquiring birth certificates for their babies. At the same time, the law criminalizes women lacking such documents.
Although unwed mothers no longer face jail after the UAE legalized premarital sex in November 2020, they now face a maze of red tape.
Obtaining birth certificates for their babies is a costly process that the country's poorest residents — foreign workers who clean offices, serve food and care for the children of other mothers — cannot afford. Expats outnumber locals by nearly nine to one in the Emirates.
“We were so full of hope,” said Star, one of those released from Sharjah Central Jail in December 2020 with her 3-month-old daughter. “Then came trouble I didn’t think I’d have the strength to get through.”
Star gave only her first name for fear of reprisals. She and six other unmarried women, most of them Filipinas, described their legal battles to The Associated Press.
Before last year's law change, several had given birth at hospitals, where health authorities denied them birth certificates and called the police. Others withdrew to their shared apartments, scared and alone, to have their babies.
In the UAE, hospitals issue birth certificates only to married parents. Without the certificates, children are unable to receive medical care, attend school or travel. Their mothers, who lost work and residency during prosecution under the old law, become stranded. The number of undocumented children in the UAE is not known.
source: https://news.yahoo.com/uae-law-change-wedlock-babies-060921259.html
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