UAE plan to tighten citizenship laws for foreign women :: GN

Quoting:

Foreign women married to UAE nationals may have to wait 10 years before applying for citizenship, if new changes to residency laws are approved, a senior official said.
Brigadier Saeed Bin Bleilah, Director of Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD), was speaking yesterday after opening a new DNRD branch in Abu Hail.

Bin Bleilah confirmed there was a proposal to tighten citizenship laws for foreign women. At present they can apply for citizenship after three years of marriage.

The proposal suggests foreign women should wait for 10 years. Bin Belailah said the current law was being "abused" by women "who want to obtain UAE citizenship." He said a 10-year wait would put off potential cheats. He would not say how many foreign women had married national men, or how many he thought had exploited the law to settle in the UAE.

Women from other GCC countries would probably be exempt from the 10-year wait, he said.

Bin Bleilah said if the proposal went ahead, it would encourage UAE national men to marry UAE national women. "We have a spinsterhood problem in the UAE," he said.