Mother left homeless because of overdue rent and loan debts
Soniya Sameera never imagined the troubles she would experienced when she became pregnant after 10 years of trying to conceive.
Soniya, a microbiologist from India, came to the UAE in 2009 and had worked hard, being promoted from an assistant at one insurance company to assistant manager at another in Dubai.
Her husband was a gym trainer and although he lost his job, the family managed to keep afloat. Their life was complete, they thought, when she became pregnant with twin boys last year.
“That was sadly the beginning of all my financial problems,” Soniya says.
Her pregnancy was difficult from the start. “I was bleeding heavily and the water levels of one of the twins was low.”
She needed complete bed rest, but her employers found that inconvenient. “They kept harassing me and calling me every day”.
It reached the point where they forced her to resign. “They called me in and I literally cried and begged them and asked them to not fire me,” Soniya says.
She had taken out a loan to pay for her sister’s wedding and was paying the rent for their one-bedroom apartment in Deira.
Soniya says the company told her she was a liability and they were not willing to continue paying for her insurance. Without insurance or a job, she went back to India.
“I went against my doctor’s orders and went back home because it is cheaper there to deliver,” she says.
The day she arrived, she was admitted to a hospital, where she remained until she delivered her twins on July 20 last year. Sadly only one of the twins survived and the other, Armaan, remained in intensive care for a month.
“They were born weighing about 1 kilo and Armaan’s lungs were very weak,” Soniya says
While in hospital, two of the four cheques that she had deposited for her rent bounced.
“The hospital in India wanted Dh30,000, so all the money we had went to that and our accounts were empty,” she says.
As soon as she and her newborn returned to Dubai, they were arrested at the airport and taken to the police station over the bounced cheques.
“Thankfully they saw that I had a baby and saw I was breastfeeding so they let me go and took my passport as guarantee,” Soniya says.
The family were finally reunited but her visa expired, her passport is being held by the authorities and they are homeless.
“We are staying at a relative’s apartment, but he is leaving in two weeks and we will have nowhere to go,” Soniya says. “The bank will also file a case against me because I haven’t paid the instalment.”
Her sister also urgently needs a kidney transplant. “Since I’m the eldest sister I need to support her, but I can’t now without a job.”
Hisham Al Zahrani, manager of zakat and social services at Dar Al Ber Society, says: “Soniya needs around Dh40,000 to pay off her rent and loan instalment. She also desperately needs to help her sister who will die without a transplant.
“She also needs support in finding a job. She has up to eight years of experience in medical insurance and is not idly waiting around for charity, but she needs support.”
Soniya her previous employers an email to her previous employers asking them to reinstate her, but they have refused and cancelled her visa.
“I want a job to pay off all my loans and get our lives in order,” she says.