In order to reduce the number of unmarried women in the country, the UAE authorities decided to pay housing allowance to emirate men with two wives.
UAE Minister of Infrastructure Development Dr. Abdullah Belhayf Al Nuaymi at a session of the Federal National Council said that the Ministry decided to provide housing allowances for men-emirates under the Sheikh Zayed housing program for the second wife as well as for the first.
“The second wife should be provided with the same living conditions as the first,” the minister explained.
Members of the National Council concluded that housing benefits would help reduce the number of single women in the UAE.
“The ministry should make it easier for a man to make a decision to marry a second woman, providing him with opportunities to expand housing. In addition, this step will solve the problem of single women,” said Hamad Al Rahumi, a member of the National Council.
Thus, the members of the Council believe that by solving the housing problem, the authorities will also be able to remove the problem of lowering social status, since it is the high cost of housing that prevents a man from having more than one wife.
The Minister for Infrastructure Development said that at first it was proposed to allocate for the second wife "a separate extension to the main house of the first wife", which will serve as housing for her.
However, he added that the Ministry later rejected such an idea as being unfair to the second wife.
"It would be unwise to give the second wife a house worse than the first."
It is worth noting that some members of the National Council were concerned about housing projects. So Mr. Khalifa Suhail Al Mazrui asked the Minister of Infrastructure Development Dr. Abdullah Belhayf Al Nuaymi the question about the housing units that will be built under the directives of the President, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa ibn Zayed ibn Sultan Al Nahyan and how many houses were commissioned from the beginning of the project until the end of 2017 of the year.
The minister replied that the authorities use various methods to resolve this issue.
"One of the methods is to replace a piece of land that already belongs to a citizen with another piece of land. After that, the house is demolished, because no one else lives in it."
According to the Minister, to date, about 500 houses have been replaced, adding that the work is "progressing well", and the number of houses replaced under this program will soon reach two thousand.
