DUBAI // A new law on the protection of children of unknown parentage is on the cards, and could coincide with the country's first federal shelter for abandoned children.
According to recent figures compiled by the Ministry of Social Affairs, a total of 44 children were found across the UAE in 2007, up from 20 the previous year. In the first eight months of 2008, 17 babies were found abandoned.
Some of the babies may have been abandoned because they have disabilities, are born out of wedlock, or are the result of an unwanted pregnancy.
On March 2, two baby boys were found abandoned in a mosque in Sharjah, becoming the third and fourth such cases recorded in the Northern Emirates this year.
To cope with the growing numbers, the ministry is planning to open a shelter which would be known as Tala, meaning palm-tree sapling. It would be able to care for up to 200 children found anywhere in the UAE, according to Moza al Shoomi, the director of the ministry's child department and the manager of the project.
"The idea is how to take these children and to help them for their future," she said. "We want those small palm trees to grow and to give good things."
The shelter has already been designed by a local architect and will be built on land in Umm al Qaiwain donated by the Government of the emirate.
Currently, there are only two local government-run centres for abandoned, neglected or orphaned children - one in Sharjah and the other in Abu Dhabi.
In Dubai, children are cared for in a dedicated ward at Al Wasl Hospital. There are no facilities available in Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Ajman or Umm al Qaiwain, according to Ms al Shoomi.
In Sharjah, children found in the emirate are looked after at the Social Care Centre for Children, which is run by the Department of Social Services.
Currently, around 20 children are staying at the shelter, including the two boys abandoned this month. According to the department, 21 children were found abandoned in the emirate over the past two years.
The ministry is looking for sponsors to finance the Dh20 million (US$5.4m) Tala project, in order to start construction by 2012.
The planned shelter is part of wider government plans to organise the system that cares for children found abandoned.
The Government is considering a draft law on the protection of children of unknown parentage which would create a streamlined system for foster care across the nation.
According to Ms al Shoomi, the aim is to develop a "united, federal system" to protect vulnerable children, including those who have been abandoned.
"The idea is to create a system which makes everything clear," she said.
Among the areas outlined in the draft law are the criteria and process by which foster families will be chosen.
Those applying to foster abandoned children would undergo a thorough evaluation overseen by the Ministry of Social Affairs to ensure that they have the necessary attributes to be competent parents.
Once the system is introduced, the ministry would have a database of potential families ready to take an abandoned child into their home.
Currently, Emiratis can apply to local government authorities to become foster families. All children abandoned in the UAE are eligible for Emirati citizenship.
Abandoned and orphaned children occupy a special place in Islamic tradition. Caring for laqeet, abandoned children, is considered a pious act. Yateem - orphans - are children of known parentage whose father or both parents are deceased.
According to Ms al Shoomi, traditionally many of the larger, wealthier families would absorb abandoned or orphaned children into their homes.
But now, she said, some families have fostered children to receive the monthly financial support from the government.
Under the system being proposed, if a suitable family was not immediately found, in the interim the children would stay at the Tala shelter, where infants to children up to 18 years old would be cared for - orphans, abandoned children and neglected children.
Ms al Shoomi and her team started the Tala project in 2008, and have since visited the UAE's existing facilities, as well as those in countries including Saudi Arabia and Singapore, to develop their ideal model.
"I saw some orphanages that were like a jail," she said. "We don't want that, we want it to be more like a hotel, or a home with a family."
The plans for the shelter depict a series of connected units, in which groups of children live together, cared for by supervisors - "aunties" and "uncles".
Infants would be looked after in a nursery environment, while the school-age children would attend local schools.
"It will be like a family - the older girls, for example will look after their younger sisters," Ms al Shoomi said.
"Before this used to be a very sensitive subject," she said. "But we have to deal with it because the cases are continuing."
@Email:zconstantine@thenational.ae
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
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It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
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Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
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