Awareness on the rise since ‘Wadeema Law’
It has been a year and few months since the ‘Wadeema Law’ was established. The law is named after the eight-year-old Emirati girl who was tortured and beaten to death by her father and his girlfriend, whose death shocked the nation and prompted the UAE authorities to implement the UAE Child Protection Law (Federal Law no.3 of 2016).
A year since its implementation, efforts to improve child protection have been enhanced, said Afra Al Basti, director-general of the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children (DFWAC).
“We have not seen cases as horrific as Wadeema’s in recent times. However, I would recommend that a proper data collection centre could be established to measure and study cases of abuse against children… This would be a way to prevent future cases from taking place,” Al Basti told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the 5th Arab Regional Conference on the Prevention of Child Abuse.
“It is very hard to count the cases and children who arrive at the DFWAC… The numbers keep varying over the months. Some of the cases are truly shocking,” she added.
Al Basti stressed that cases of domestic abuse were the highest among those reported at the DFWAC. “This is the case in both Emirati as well as expatriate families. Sometimes, the families are not financially stable and this negatively affects their lifestyle. But we do conduct programmes for families and educate them, in collaboration with police authorities as well as the Ministry of Education,” she added.
Al Basti stated that statistics on how many children are abused in the UAE continue to remain scant, however, there is a visibly increased awareness on the need to protect children from any kind of psychological or physical violence. The law states that violators can be slapped with a fine ranging from Dh5,000 and Dh50,000 and/or imprisonment of not more than 10 years, depending on the violation. Families need to beat stigma Al Basti stated that though there has been an improvement, there is a possibility that there could be several unreported cases in the UAE. “As a society, there is still a lot of social stigmas is reporting abuse cases. We find it below our status to speak about it... It’s embarrassing in some cases. Not only the ones against children, but those against women as well. Families need to overcome that stigma and start talking about abuse of children… And this is an urgent need,” she added.
The director of DFWAC lauded the establishment of 800 111 as the child helpline number in the UAE. dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com
I would recommend that a data collection centre could be established to measure and study cases of abuse against children.” Afra Al Basti, director-general of DFWAC