A desperate mother has pleaded with authorities not to put her five-year-old ‘son’ into an orphanage.

The 46-year-old Dubai-based teacher, who has asked not to be named, was convicted last week of falsifying documents to become the boy’s guardian when he was just a baby.

Now, prosecutors have warned she could lose custody of the young child, who is thought to be Filipino.

But she said she would rather go to jail than see the boy taken into care.

“It’s not about my interests, it’s all about him. He gains nothing from this, only loses a family,” she told 7DAYS.

She stroked the boy’s hand as she spoke and said they may only have weeks together before he is placed in an orphanage or given over to another family.

“He loves his school, he loves his friends. How can I explain to him that his mummy won’t be there anymore?” she said.

The woman was given a three-month suspended sentence for giving a false statement about the origins of the child, while another woman was acquitted of selling him.

Prosecutors said her son might now be taken from her because his guardianship documents were based on fabricated information.

The woman said she understood she had done wrong and that the court was “very fair”.

She said she was not trying to overturn her conviction, but added: “I am asking them to act with compassion.” She has 15 days to appeal to prosecutors before they make a decision on the youngster’s future.

She has said she found the boy as a baby in a pink blanket outside her home five years ago.

She later went to the City of Hope shelter in Dubai to seek advice on how to obtain a passport and other documents for him that would allow her to become his official guardian.

“I acted innocently. I was just trying to help a child who didn’t have a mother,” she said.

sean.odriscoll@7days.ae

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