A 17-year-old girl in Dubai reached out to police for assistance via Instagram after she was locked in her room by her parents for two days.
The parents had even prevented their daughter from leaving the room to attend school, Khaleej Times reports.
Dubai police quickly jumped into action to investigate the case and locate the teenager, reportedly a GCC national.
"A team swung into action and started searching to locate her. After a lot of effort, we managed to get the home address of the girl and reached her place," Lt Col Saeed Rashid Al Haili, director of the Department of Child and Women Protection at the Dubai Police Human Rights Division, said.
Al Haili said that the girl's parents were surprised when the police arrived at their door, justifying their actions as routine discipline. They said their daughter had gone to a restaurant with her friends without first informing them, leading to the punishment.
The girl's father insisted that they had never harmed her or inflicted any violence upon her.
The teen girl told police that she wishes to live with her aunt instead of her parents. Her older sister has already gone to live with their aunt, leaving the house after she turned 21.
In response to the situation, police conducted a special session between the teen and her parents. Her parents were required to sign a document vowing to never repeat such a punishment, while the girl was told to obey and listen to her parents.
Some 50 cases of child abuse were reported to Dubai Police's Child and Women Protection unit during the first nine months of this year, according to The National.
Police said that 35 percent of these cases involved negligence and 25 percent involved physical abuse.
The UAE Child Protection Law came into effect in June of this year, which punishes negligent and/or abusive parents with fines of up to 50,000 dirhams and a maximum of 10 years in jail.