Emirati girl, 14, ran away to meet Facebook friend

SHARJAH // A teenage Emirati girl who ran away from her parents' home to rendezvous with a man she met on Facebook was found by police less than a day later in a hotel in a neighbouring emirate.

The 14-year-old girl's parents, who live in Kalba, alerted police on June 30 after she went missing from the family home, fearing she had been kidnapped.

In less than 24 hours officers tracked the missing girl to a hotel in Fujairah where she had booked a room using her parents' credit card.

Police from Sharjah, along with officers from Fujairah, travelled to the hotel, arrested the girl and took her to the Eastern Region police station.

The teenager told police that she had left her family's home on her own and visited a beauty salon. From there she took a taxi to Fujairah and booked the hotel room.

She said she did this after her parents' refused to let her get engaged to a man she had met on the social networking site Facebook eight months earlier.

The man, who is 18, had called the girl's parents asking for her hand in marriage, but they had refused.

The teen told officers that when she reached the hotel she called the man and told him where she was, but he said she should return to her parents' home. She said she started crying in the hotel and was still crying when police arrived.

"From the time police were told about this missing girl we worked hard to trace where she was being held in case she was abducted. When we found her in the hotel it was big relief worth of all our efforts," a police spokesman said.

Police have referred the case to prosecutors in Khor Fakhan.

A spokesman appealed to parents to be vigilant with their children, especially girls, and to monitor all their interactions with others whether on the phone or social networks such as Facebook.