Friends girlfriend's parents preventing her from returning to UK from the UAE (Abu-Dhabi)

Question

Background:

• A friend's long term girlfriend (4+ years) studied in this country and has since worked a couple of jobs.
• She is a German/UAE dual national. I was apparently mistaken about her being a UAE/German dual national and she should now be solely a German national.
• I'm not quite sure what her current exact visa situation in the UK is unfortunately but I'm confident she was here legally the entire time, to start with on a student visa.
• Communication with her cannot be assumed to be private but she is usually contactable.

I'm led to believe she never had a brilliant relationship with her parents but recently returned to them in Abu-Dhabi to try and mend things for a week. Her parents told her they would buy her plane tickets, including a return to the UK after a week. The return ticket was never bought to the best of our knowledge.

On her arrival in Abu-Dhabi her parents got hold of her passport (on probable false pretences) to set up medical insurance, and have since hidden it from her.

She would like to return to the UK but due to the above is unable to. What steps can she/we take to get her back safely? With less progressive laws around women we obviously want to be careful to avoid her being put in potential harm's way.

My friend tried contacting the German Embassy in Abu-Dhabi and the Consulate in Dubai but they weren't much help, though maybe he didn't know the correct things to ask.

Are there any organisations etc that could help?

Any advice or pointers are very much appreciated.

Answer 1

This is not an answer but (IMO) too important for a comment: you really need to run the specifics of this case by a lawyer that's an expert in UAE law & customs. This is already a precarious situation. Taking advice from random (if well-intended) strangers from the internet may result in making a mistake which could make things considerably worse.

Answer 2

I fully agree with the answer that a lawyer is going to be necessary to do anything here, but first your friend needs to establish something very clearly which is:

Is your friend's girlfriend actually being held against her will?

From the fact that she's had her passport taken from her it looks like it is. But the exact circumstances are going to be important. There is unfortunately a big difference between "if you go back to the UK we will disown you and won't pay for your studies" and locking a person in the house and physically preventing them from leaving. The first is just a family dispute about which authorities can do nothing. The second is kidnapping. Put simply:

If your friends girlfriend got a chance to physically go back to the UK would she take it, no matter what the consequences were for her relationship with her family?

If the answer to that isn't an emphatic "yes" then there is nothing any authorities can do.

If she is prepared to take this very drastic step then your friend should contact the German embassy and report that she has been kidnapped. They will probably need to speak to the girlfriend. They can work with Abu Dhabi authorities (although I have no idea how those authorities will treat this).

One possible scenario is that if she can get to the German embassy in Abu Dhabi then they can get her a new temporary passport and put her on a flight to Germany. They might do this without having to confront her family or UAE authorities.

You should also be aware the the rights of women in UAE are nowhere near equal to men, and permission of male family members is sometimes required for women to get jobs, study, travel abroad , and especially to marry. Being somebody's "girlfriend" (in the sense that is usually used in the West) would be forbidden by family, and restrictions imposed by the family may not be overturned by authorities.

An easy test of this is for the girlfriend to demand her passport back from her family. It's hers, and taking it from her is theft. If they refuse she should consider reporting it to the police. In all the countries I've lived in the police would insist on them giving it back to her. I don't know how that would work in Abu Dhabi.

Answer 3

Notwithstanding @Hilmar answer, another action that can be taken is that the friend (as an interested party) inform the local (in the UK) German consulate of the situation.

The friend should supply as much personal information about the German citizen as possible (Name, birthday, last residence in Germany or where the last German passport was issued and known details of the case).

This report would then be passed on to the Foreign Office in Berlin and then to the consulate in the UAE.

As always with dual nationals, the host country is not required to recognise the second citizenship (i.e. the host citizenship prevails).

This could restrict the possible assistence of the consulate of the second citizenship.

Answer 4

With the new information, this is obviously invalid if the person isn't a UAE citizen

GCC Citizens have freedom of movement across all the GCC states, which makes for a possibility to get to another diplomatic mission from Germany and alleviate all the issues about diplomatic representations as a dual-national.

If they have their Emirates ID, they can likely (I don't know if a lone woman can though) take a flight to Doha, Qatar (NOTE about entry requirements) or Muscat, Oman and get hold of the German mission to get out either back to Germany or the UK.

Answer 5

Things like this do happen, a prominent example would be Sabatina James (TED Talk).

Sabatina James established the organization Sabatina e.V., to help women threatened by oppression or violence lead a self-determined free life. She supports their talents, and finds them protection and shelter.

Link: https://www.sabatinajames.com

Their focus seems to be on Germany and Pakistan, but they might at least be able to point you to someone working in the Emirates.

Answer 6

You could also try to contact the Federal Foreign Office:

https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/visa-service/buergerservice

This link leads to a helpdesk page with phone numbers.

If she has only German citizenship, the German authorities have to take some action, and I am sure that they know how to help in such cases.

If she is unable to contact the German ambassy in Abu Dhabi, you can also contact the German ambassy in London.

I remember I once read about an international organization specialized on helping women in such cases, but unfortunately, I cannot remember the name and cannot find it in the internet.

Answer 7

If I understand correctly the question, this is a German citizen whose documents were stolen.

She can go to the German embassy or consulate to inform them that her documents were stolen and that she needs new ones to return to Germany.

After that she gets on a plane to Germany.

Obviously, this assumes that:

• she is not an Emirati citizen in which case the applicable laws are Emirati ones and they can be whatever
• she is not kidnapped
• she is ready to move from "not brilliant relationship" to "little hope to talk again"
• she has the money to buy plane tickets
• her family does not have the power to set whatever rules they want and that they will be followed by the local police/authorities