This week, the UAE changed, in a subtle but vital way. The implementation of a new child protection law, popularly known as Wadeema’s Law, now shifts the responsibility and burden of protection of children from the family to the wider society. It is the result of many months of discussion and will mean changes in the way children are dealt with by schools, hospitals and social services.
From now, anyone in contact with a child can be held accountable for causing harm and is legally obliged to report cases of suspected abuse. If abuse is suspected, social services have the right to enter the home to investigate, to sit and initiate a dialogue with the parents and, in extreme cases, remove the child and refer the parents to the courts.
This will, naturally, change how parents and children interact with the law. Previously, Emirati society understood the home to be the domain of the family alone, and the state rarely interfered. This is a subtle shift, but an important one as the society expands in number and develops new institutions. Children spend so much time with people other than their parents – at school, at social clubs – that it is important that everyone in society is empowered to spot and act on signs of abuse or neglect.
But the law is just the beginning. It is important to understand that the Child Protection Law – which applies to all children in the UAE, not merely nationals – is an aspiration, a direction of travel. How it will be interpreted by social services, by doctors, by teachers, and how it will be applied by the police and the courts is still to be negotiated. That’s why this is the beginning of a process. As more cases come to light, the way these regulations will be applied will become clearer.
And more cases will come out. Not because there is more abuse, but because now that a new law has been promulgated, there will, naturally, be prosecutions under it. Cases that may have been missed, abuse that was overlooked, suspicions that went unspoken – all of those could now turn into legal action.
So the law is really the start of a broader conversation about child protection. It sets out things that are no longer acceptable – for example types of discipline against children – and things that never were, such as abuse. Gradually, the police, the courts and the society will change in response to the law. This is a shift for the better, and will help safeguard all children into the future.
