quote:
Originally posted by coleen:
can anyone give me information on adopting a child here in egypt
Thank you.
From Evelyn Early's book: "Infertility and Patriarchy".
In terms of Islam, the Islamic scriptures and family law make specific provisions for the care and treatment of orphans (Esposito 1982, 1991; Sonbol 1991). However, orphans cannot be officially “adopted”, in that they cannot (1)inherit from adoptive parents, (2)receive family name of the adoptive father if their own family name is known (or their family name is fabricated by the police, as is common practice for abandoned infants in contemporary Egypt), and (3) become fully acknowledged as the children of adoptive parents. (This does not preclude, however, permanent fostering arrangements, which will be described shortly.)
Interestingly, because of their lack of religious literacy, few poor urban Egyptians are aware that adoption is religiously prohibited, and many in fact believe that it constitutes a “good deed” in the eyes of God. Of those who are aware of the religious prohibition against adoption, most explain it as “cheating” – as “changing God’s religion” – to raise a child and give him a name, an inheritance, and a “blood” that are not really his own. The religiously inspired proverb “Those who raise other than their own children are building a house on other than their own land” is often cited to explain this sense of misappropriation.
However, even women who mistakenly believe in the religious permissibility of adoption view it, as well as any other form of permanent fostering of orphans, as a problematical and unacceptable institution. This is true even among infertile women, most of whom say that they and their husbands would refuse the idea of bringing an orphaned child into their own homes. According to both infertile and fertile women, many of who have watched the popular movies and television shows devoted to this theme, adoption of a child is a mistake on a number of grounds – even apparent in women’s own discourse on the subject, there are multitude of powerful reasons militating against this practice.
First, there is the problem of illegitimacy. Adopted children are usually of unknown parentage and ancestry; that is, they are “strangers”, who do not share the same “blood” as their adoptive parents. Moreover, in most cases, they are probably illegitimate – making them an ibn haram, or literally, a “son of sin”. Because moral character is considered by most poor urban Egyptians to be transmitted hereditarily, or “through the blood,” an illegitimate child can be assumed to be of “bad blood” and will probably grow up to become like its parents. Therefore, children who are “known,” but are orphaned because of their parents’ deaths, are considered by Egyptians to be better adoptive candidates.
As one woman explained: “If you bring a child from the orphanage, you don’t know its origins. And no matter how good of an environment it grows up in, it still has its parents’ blood. And if they’re bad, it can go back to its origins [be bad, too].”
As another woman put it: “It’s not haram for the person who adopts the child, but the child, he himself is haram, because he is a son nobody. You don’t know his parents. He’s ‘unofficial’. They call him ‘ibn haram.’ The child did nothing wrong in his life, but his parents, maybe he came ‘in the wrong way,’ so they gave him to an orphanage. It’s different if his parents died. We will know of whom he is the son, and all his life he will be this person’s child. He’s ‘known.’”
Second, there is the problem of parental intervention. According to poor urban Egyptians, if the biological parents of an abandoned child happen to be alive, they may eventually seek their child, causing trouble for the adoptive parents as well as for the child. Most poor urban Egyptians are convinced, perhaps based on their knowledge of familial fostering outcomes, that adoptive children eventually return to their “real” parents, either by choice or because the biological parents have intervened.
Third, there is the problem of affinity. Namely, because an adopted child is not a blood relation and did not emerge form its adoptive mother’s womb, most poor urban Egyptians believe that he “natural” feelings of affinity of the adoptive parents toward this child can never be as strong as they would be toward a biological child of one’s own, and this may cause some adoptive parents to mistreat, exploit, and neglect such a child, especially if a biological child is born after the adoption. Furthermore, if the child misbehaves or is aggressive toward his/her adoptive parents – which is apt to be the case with children who go wrong by virtue of the “bad blood” of their biological parents or who simply feel less loyalty to their adoptive parents by virtue of their “different blood” – forgiving the child would be more difficult.
As one woman put it: “I couldn’t get myself to love an adopted child enough, because one’s own child is a part of you, and you go through a lot to give it birth, so you necessarily take good care of it. Otherwise, it’s like taking care of something that’s not your own.”
Fourth, there is the problem of erotic attraction. Namely, many poor urban women believe – and are supported by contemporary popular and Islamist discourse on the subject – that if a couple adopts a child and then happens to have a child of their own of the opposite sex, the children should not be raised together as siblings, because they are actually potential marriage partners. Such an arrangement is deemed abnormal and even sinful because of the potential for erotic attraction that seems semi-incestuous. Likewise, an adopted girl her father. Dressing and undressing in front of such children as they grow older might provoke erotic feelings that might lead to sinful acts. Furthermore, if the child is given the family name of his adoptive father, he may grow up to marry his biological sister, who goes by a different name. Situations of this sort are frequently depicted on Egyptian television and in the movies.
Fifth, there is the problem of stigmatization of the child. Namely, because adoption is culturally unacceptable for the aforementioned reasons, an adopted child will be stigmatized by the adoptive parents’ extended families, as well as community members. This will ultimately affect the child’s psychological well-being. According to Egyptian women, other children will mock the adopted child, call it “the one whose parents brought you from the orphanage.” Not only will this permanently scar the child, but the child will suffer additionally from not knowing who its real parents are.
As one woman who had witnessed the mistreatment of an orphaned child explained: “One of my neighbors ‘adopted’ a girl. Whenever this girl passes by, people always make her feel she’s adopted. ‘This is the girl from the orphanage. They adopted her.’ I was standing there one day, and they told me, and she was standing next to us. I’m sure she heard, and I felt very sorry for her. I’m sure this child will be psychologically affected. Where we live, all of know each other. If we do something like this, all the people will talk.”
Sixth, there is the problem of stigmatization of the adoptive mother. Namely, those who know about the adoption will gossip and will stigmatize the women who is unable to give her husband children. They may tell her that she “stole” a child that does not belong to her or that she is raising a child for someone else who should really be doing the upbringing. Furthermore, most Egyptians assume that a husband would rather divorce his infertile wife than resort to this option, because his second wife is likely to provide him with offspring and proper heirs to his inheritance. Adopting is, in effect, tantamount to admitting that the wife (who is usually blamed for the reproductive failing) is hopelessly infertile, and it is considered wiser for a man to try his reproductive luck with another women.
Finally, there is a problem of poverty. Namely, it is widely perceived by poor urban Egyptians that only the rich are allowed to adopt. The popular perception is that orphanages require adoptive parents to have money in the bank, land, and other financial assets with which to secure the future of the adoptive child. Therefore, most poor Egyptians believe that they are prohibited from adopting.
As one woman summarized: “Adoption only occurs under very strict conditions. The mother has to work and have her own income, a house of her own, and she must promise to leave an inheritance [to the adopted child]. They must educate the child, and they have to come visit the parents in the house to see what it’s like. So only rich people can adopt – those who have lots of money in the bank. But we’re poor, so we’re not even thinking about it.”
For all those reasons, obtaining a child from an orphanage is deemed either unacceptable or unrealistic by most poor infertile Egyptian couples. Nonetheless, in Egypt’s major cities, state-run and charitable orphanages have existed since the late 1800s and continue to place orphaned children in homes of infertile Egyptians of all classes. Such orphanages take in three major categories of admissions (Rugh 1984): (1) abandoned infants, assumed to be illegitimate; (2) foundling children up to age four, assumed to be abandoned by their impoverished parents; and (3) children brought by relatives (especially divorced or widowed parents), neighbors, or social agencies because of the critical inability to care for them. Although most of these children who were lost or abandoned at the doors of mosques, churches, police stations, hospitals, or eve in the streets and were turned over to orphanages. Children who are old enough to know their names cannot be fostered, because the parents are presumed to be in search of them or, as is sometimes the case, may be in actual contact with them.
Within their first year of life, most abandoned infants are fostered out to infertile Egyptian couples, usually those from middle and upper classes. Although the fostering arrangement is almost identical to adoption as it is known in the West, there are some important differences. First these foster retain the name given to them by the po9lice when they are found (Sonbol 1991). Essentially, when an abandoned child is found and turned over to the police, a police record is opened, and a name, parents’ names, grandparents’ names, place of birth, and time of birth are all fabricated by the officer filling out the report (Sonbol 1991). Giving the child such a “record”, which is registered at the orphanage, is deemed important for birth and death statistics, for identifying the child, and for safeguarding the child in a society that regards illegitimate children as carrying the stigmata of their parents by way of moral contagion (Sonbol 1991).
When this child is “adopted,” the new parents must accept becoming its guardians only, which is achieved through a court order. The child retains his or her name so that there will be no confusion over future heirs and so that he adopted child cannot lay claim to property or other rights from his or her adoptive parents (Sonbol 1991).
Accordingly, changing the name of the child to that of the adoptive father is a complicated matter that involves further fabrication. First the permission of the Ministry of Social Affairs must be received; lack of permission is punishable by law (Sonbol 1991). If the approval is granted, the adoptive father must go to court and swear that eh child is his biological child and that, by recognizing his paternity, he is legitimizing him. An adoptive mother cannot do this, because declaring an adoptive child to be her biological child is tantamount to declaring oneself a “fallen women” or prostitute (Sonbol 1991).
Although some couples do “adopt” their children through false claims of paternity, other simply change the child’s name unofficially, a practice that is illegal. Furthermore, many abandoned children who are found are never taken to orphanages; instead they are given over to and kept by infertile couples, who give the child the father’s name and try to pass the child off as their own.
Abandoned infants found on porches, sidewalks, and apartment entryways are not uncommon in poor urban neighborhoods, and such children are usually directed by sympathetic neighbors to childless couples. Although some couples may keep these children, others end up turning the infants over to the police, usually upon the advice of husband’s family members.
In addition, newborn infants are occasionally abandoned in the maternity wards of hospitals. For example, in the University of Alexandria’s Shatby Hospital, the public maternity hospital, which serves mostly lower-class women, abandonment of newborn infants by their mothers is not uncommon, and, when it occurs, it is always the topic of speculation among patients and hospital staff. As with infants found in public places, these abandoned children are taken by the police from the hospital to the Muslim orphanage in Alexandria.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic