Six-year-old by "reunited" with the father who abandoned him--while the non-abandoning mother is shut out (Umm al Qaiwan, United Arab Emirates)

This is a bizarre tale. It's also an object lesson in what happens when mothers are erased from public discourse and fathers rights are thoroughly institutionalized as supreme--as they are in Middle East. And as they are increasingly in other areas of the globe as well.

Read the headline below. Sounds like somebody kidnapped this 6-year-old boy, doesn't it? And that the father just found him after five years. Was the boy taken by bandits? Or horror! By his own mother?

Nope. Completely and TOTALLY WRONG.

Five years ago, UNNAMED DAD separated from his wife in an "acrimonious divorce dispute." Now "acrimonious divorce dispute" is one of those phrases that could mean anything--from a lot of arguing about a property settlement to basic code for a controlling abuser threatening and harrassing his partner.

Guess which one we have here.

Daddy was having all kinds of financial and legal problems, and apparently being a basically vengeful @$$hole, decided that the mother, his ex, was NOT going to raise HIS son. So Daddy ABANDONED the boy at a hospital childcare center when he was just a year old.

So when the hospital's community affairs department finally decides to look into the matter (and this is years later for some reason), do they have any interest in searching for this boy's mother? NO. Why bother with a mere woman? No, they're only interesting in tracking down HIS FATHER. Remember him? The vengeful idiot who abandoned the boy in order to hurt the mother and punish the child? After finally tracking the father down--and diligently "studying the circumstances"--the authorities decide (of course) that no charges will be leveled against the abusive, abandoning father. So police decide to "reunite" the boy with his father.

Oh, yea. They also (finally) got around to "contacting" his mother, and it was agreed that she could "meet" the boy too. How charitable. The woman who apparently did no wrong here, other than get a divorce.

And though there is lip service to custody being decided in Oman, sounds like they already know who this boy is going with.

We're told that the boy "has been missing his father's love and parental care." Really? And not his mother's? Seems to me that Dad's past track record shows he doesn't have a lot of love and parental care to give, since he's basically a self-centered jerk. As for Mom, she apparently did nothing wrong--except to have the bad luck of being born a woman in the Middle East. For this "crime," she's not even MENTIONED as a mother in connection to this child missing her love and care.

So is it then surprising that the authorities have the abusive and abandoning daddy (and not the mother) sign a pledge promising "to take good care of the boy" and "have him educated"?

Good luck enforcing THAT pledge, my lad.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/boy-6-reunited-with-father-after-five-years

Boy, 6, reunited with father after five years
Yasin Kakande

Last Updated: Nov 9, 2010

The Umm al Qaiwain police reunited the six-year-old-boy with his parents, who were traced to Oman.

UMM AL QAIWAIN // In the five years since his father abandoned him as a 12-month-old baby, the only family the little boy knew were the staff of a hospital childcare centre.

Nevertheless, he flourished; he made friends, and learnt to speak five languages from the children of various nationalities cared for at the centre in Umm al Qaiwain.

Now, at the age of six, the little boy's life has changed again. Thanks to detective work by the police community affairs department, his father has been traced to Oman and reunited with the child he left behind.

The man abandoned his son while separated from his wife in an acrimonious divorce dispute, and facing arrest and imprisonment on charges of having unpaid debts.

"The father was determined not to have his son raised by his divorced mother," Col Sheikh Rashid al Mualla, the police director general, said yesterday.

"When he learnt that he was losing the financial cases in court and would be arrested soon, he took the baby to the hospital and left him ."

The community affairs department, formed this year to handle social and humanitarian matters, spent more than two weeks investigating the case and searching for the boy's father, who they believed had been released from jail.

Based on information from authorities at the hospital where the child was left, the department managed to track him down.

“After studying the circumstances in which the baby was abandoned, the police assured the parent that they only needed him to collect his son and there would be no further criminal charges against him when he returned to the UAE,” Col al Mualla said.

Police discussed the matter with the father and agreed to reunite him with his son. The mother was also contacted, and it was agreed that both parents should meet the boy.

He was collected from the hospital’s childcare centre, his home for almost his entire life, and handed over to his parents.

The question of custody will be decided in Oman, where his mother and father now both live.

The UAQ Medical District was responsible for the boy’s wellbeing in the childcare centre, which provides basic needs such as medical services. Rashid Obaid al Shehhi, the deputy director, was happy that the boy was being returned to his family because he has been missing his father’s love and parental care.

“It is our first reunion success story,” he said. “We wish him the best in life with his family.”

The boy’s stay at the centre was not without its benefits. He learnt to speak Arabic, English, Hindi, Tagalog and Sinhala as a result of the education he received, and through interacting with children of several nationalities at the hospital, Mr al Shehhi said.

The family is now processing documents so that their son can join them in Oman. The police sought a signed pledge from the father to take good care of the boy and have him educated, Col al Mualla said.

The issue of abandoned children has become a hot topic in the Northern Emirates, with at least one such incident coming to light every few months. The body of a five-month-old boy was found abandoned near a mosque in the Karama area of Ajman last month. Police are still searching for his parents.

A baby girl was found dead near the new aquarium in Sharjah last year. Doctors at Al Qasimi Hospital could not determine at the time whether the seven-month-old girl had still been alive when she was abandoned, but hospital sources said there was no evidence of violence.

Police have occasionally been successful in apprehending parents of abandoned babies. Three of the parents of two babies abandoned in a mosque in Sharjah were arrested in
August, and Ajman police have detained the parents of a baby girl found abandoned in a basket this year.