Locked in room, 17-year-old girl seeks help from Dubai cops

When Dubai Police got a message from a 17-year-old girl on their Instagram account seeking help as she had been locked by her parents in a room for two days and prevented from attending school, it set the alarm bells ringing among the cops.

Lt Col Saeed Rashid Al Haili, director of the department of child and women protection at the Dubai Police human rights division, said that on receiving information about the situation of the teenage girl, a GCC national, a team swung into action and started searching to locate her. After a lot of effort, we managed to get the home address of the girl and reached her place, he added.

The girl's mother was surprised to see the cops. She admitted that she had punished her daughter because she went to a restaurant with her friends without telling her parents. The girl remained absent from school for a day without her knowledge, the mother said.

Al Haili pointed out that the girl's parents justified their action by saying that they confined her to the room only to discipline her.

Meanwhile, the girl said that she wanted to live with her aunt, just like her elder sister who left the house after she turned 21.

The father said that they did not subject their daughter to any kind of violence and had never harmed her in any way.

Al Haili said a special session was conducted with the girl and her parents to address the case. The girl was advised to listen and obey her father and mother, while the parents were asked to sign a pledge that they would not repeat what they did this time.

4 kids' cases referred to public prosecution

The Dubai Police have referred four cases related to children to the public prosecution.

The department of child and women's protection recorded 20 cases related to children during the third quarter of this year. One of the cases concerned an Arab mother who refused to register her children in school, forcing the father to take police help.

In another case, 16-year-old boy, Majed, whose mother abandoned him in an apartment, was handed over to his father after it became clear that the woman had shifted to the Netherlands and would not return to the country again.