Meet the 19-year-old who looks like a four-year-old due to a rare genetic phenomenom.<br /><br />Dannia Shabbir could be the only female in the world living with chromosome translocation, her family say.<br /><br />The condition means that the teenager, who is non-verbal, looks like a little girl and weighs just 17kg.<br /><br />Sadly this means some people have abused her mum Aleisha Almahari, 56, and auntie Kelly Shabbir, 39, when they use disabled spaces.<br /><br />But, despite the challenges, her family say Dannia is easygoing and happy all the time - and enjoys jetting off to hot countries.<br /><br />Aleisha said: “I’d like to raise more awareness for Dannia’s genetic makeup. This is who she is as a person.<br /><br />“That’s the way God made her. She’s so easygoing, she’s so happy all the time and she loves people more than toys.<br /><br />“The geneticist did full genetic testing after she was born and found it was chromosome translocation in chromosome 20.<br /><br />"They said there were only 4 reported cases globally, all of those boys and she was the first girl.<br /><br />"The boys have never survived and they don’t know and still don’t know what Dannia is going to do.”<br /><br />Dannia was born smaller than average, with a low body temperature and low blood sugar.<br /><br />Aleisha, from Fareham, claims that when geneticists first came to look a Dannia and investigate the issue, they said, ‘Ooh, doesn’t she look funny’ - leaving her reeling. <br /><br />Despite struggling to come to terms with the news after giving birth, the mum says Dannia has completely proved her wrong. <br /><br />She was concerned she would be ‘lifeless’ as she grew - but she says instead her daughter is easy-going, happy and smiley. <br /><br />“Basically, she’s non-verbal and non-communicative," said Aleisha.<br /><br />"When you’re pregnant you think, ‘When she gets to this age she’ll do this’.<br /><br />“Because I didn’t understand it, I had vision of Dannia being completely lifeless but actually she’s not like that."<br /><br />The family claim to have had mixed reactions from people who do not know about or understand Dannia’s condition – including being filmed and shouted at for using disabled parking bays and even being removed from a plane. <br /><br />Due to the nature of Dannia’s genetic makeup, she appears to passers-by to be toddler age – and Aleisha says she has received vicious responses after using disabled parking bays, despite having a blue badge.<br /><br />As Dannia’s wheelchair is similar in style to a pushchair, this further adds to the misunderstanding the family experience. <br /><br />Aleisha said: “In public, people don’t know what is wrong with her – she's severely disabled and she can’t walk or anything, she’s got a blue badge. <br /><br />“We get out of the car and get her version of a wheelchair and then we get verbally attacked with people saying we shouldn’t park there.<br /><br />“I’ve had people so close to me that I couldn’t open the door, or people standing there with their cameras taking pictures of me.<br /><br />“We were removed from a flight to Morocco because of her size – it was really awful and hugely embarrassing.<br /><br />“We called before and explained we had a letter from her consultant saying she can’t sit unaided in an aircraft seat and would need to sit in a lap.<br /><br />“They then decided because of her age she couldn’t sit in our lap and we needed to buy her a seat – but wouldn’t sell us a seat as she was deemed too small to sit in it.<br /><br />“The captain came out and said he wasn’t happy, they unloaded our bags, got us off the plane and walked us all the way through the airport to the door.”<br /><br />Even though it’s not always smooth sailing Dannia loves to travel, with Aleisha saying her favourite place in the world is ‘floating in a pool in Dubai’.<br /><br />“She does really well in the heat, better than the cold,” said Aleisha.<br /><br />“We take her everywhere, she’s been to so many places – her body temperature runs a degree below ours.<br /><br />“She’s been in 50 degrees before with no problem, that’s just her.<br /><br />"Being in Dubai floating around in the swimming pool was her favourite experience.”
