Right of each country to select the adoptive parents based on their religion... thoughts? Islam...

[LessTraveledBy]

I am still in the beginning stages of learning things and trying to figure out how I feel about everything. So far I have bumped into two countries (the Philippines and Morocco) that require the adoptive parents to be a particular religion (or, in the the case of the other, to be willing to convert, or at least to be willing to claim one one will convert). What are your thoughts about that?

I am trying to figure out how I feel about it all, and who (morally) actually "owns" the orphan before adoption. It seems on the one hand that the biological parents should have some right to hope for parents who e.g. are Christian or Muslim (or neither). However, the way these countries work, it is the country, not the biological parents, that decides. Tough luck if you are a biological parent who does not see things the way the country does.

I would appreciate any thoughts. I am having a hard time with this, especially with the case of Morocco. It seems to me that there are children there, sitting in orphanages, because (I am assuming) there are not enough Muslim parents who want to or are able to adopt.

If someone here knows about Islam and the impact of the teaching (guardianship, no adoptions) on Muslim parents adopting, I would be very interested. Is it not seen as a good option, etc.? Are Muslims likely to adopt special needs children. (I understand this may be impossible to answer...)

To explain my questions a bit: There is this special needs baby I have fallen in love with. I cannot understand why he has not been adopted yet. The only reason I can think of is that there must not be as many Muslim families who want to adopt internationally. Maybe there are fewer parents and enough healthy kids that the special needs kids, even babies, have a hard time finding families. I truly don't know but I would like to understand... He is a gorgeous, little baby, and has been sitting there for months, waiting for a family. I just donät understand...

TIA!

[Tigerchild]

Originally Posted by LessTraveledBy 

To explain my questions a bit: There is this special needs baby I have fallen in love with. I cannot understand why he has not been adopted yet. The only reason I can think of is that there must not be as many Muslim families who want to adopt internationally. Maybe there are fewer parents and enough healthy kids that the special needs kids, even babies, have a hard time finding families. I truly don't know but I would like to understand... He is a gorgeous, little baby, and has been sitting there for months, waiting for a family. I just donät understand...

TIA!

IMO this is part of the problems with photolistings.  Why are you so quick to blame muslims or Islam for why this child has not been adopted (so far as you know)?  Religion may be the only reason YOU can think of, but there are many reasons why children remain on photolistings (sometimes, by error, they remain on there months after they have already been placed, or while homestudies and pending for interested families).  You don't know when this child came into care, what is the wait time for parents to change their minds, when the country releases children for adoption, what the circumstances are.  You don't know how many people have expressed interest.

There are many special needs kids who are waiting in many countries, including some that have no religious restrictions.  There are kids waiting in the US too.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with the need sometimes.  And only a small percentage of waiting kids even make photolisting in the first place.

As you continue on in your info gathering journey, you'll see how (frustratingly, sometimes) complex the issue is.  Adoption takes time.  A lot of times, you don't know (and never will) the whole backstory.

 

[LessTraveledBy]

Thanks for the response. I think I should have been clearer: There are basically two separate questions here. First, I am interested in the thought of others on the rules of adoption. (Morocco is only one among the countries choosing adoptive parents based on religion. Also Christians do this.)

Secondly, I am interested in how Muslims view adoption and whether these views have an effect on how often adoptions take place.

Thank you, in any case, Tigerchild. I am indeed very new to all this, and know very little.

[love4bob]

Well it may not be right to limit the adoptive parents by religion, but it is the rule of the country, so I would just look elsewhere. There are a lot of Muslims in the world. It is the second largest religion in the world and largest for that region, so I don't see how limiting the religion(especially in that region where almost everyone is Muslim) would limit the babies being adopted too much.

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by Tigerchild 

IMO this is part of the problems with photolistings.  Why are you so quick to blame muslims or Islam for why this child has not been adopted (so far as you know)?  Religion may be the only reason YOU can think of, but there are many reasons why children remain on photolistings (sometimes, by error, they remain on there months after they have already been placed, or while homestudies and pending for interested families).  You don't know when this child came into care, what is the wait time for parents to change their minds, when the country releases children for adoption, what the circumstances are.  You don't know how many people have expressed interest.

There are many special needs kids who are waiting in many countries, including some that have no religious restrictions.  There are kids waiting in the US too.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with the need sometimes.  And only a small percentage of waiting kids even make photolisting in the first place.

As you continue on in your info gathering journey, you'll see how (frustratingly, sometimes) complex the issue is.  Adoption takes time.  A lot of times, you don't know (and never will) the whole backstory.

 

Religion and culture play a huge role in which kids are adopted, plain and simple.  I say this having worked in adoption as a social worker for years.  OP is asking a question, and looking for answers respectfully, trying to learn more.  I don't see that she is jumping to any wild conclusions or blaming anyone.  Good for you for asking and trying to understand, OP.  Certainly adoption is very complex.  Also--try not to fall in love with photolistings.  This happens all the time and rarely rarely ends up working out.  Do you have an approved home study?  Best of luck to you. 

[Liquesce]

You may find that many majority Muslim countries, either explicitly or by realistically nearly impossible to meet standards, do not allow for international and especially international interfaith adoption. This will be true almost anywhere where family law is heavily influenced by religious law, and there are some basic theological reasons for this. One, it is considered a child's absolute right to know their biological families. Even if in practice "knowing them" means only knowing their names, this is their right, having much to do with the relevant systems of inheritance, and it is a right of such social importance that it will be guarded. Connected to that, two, it is considered a kind of improper deception against a child, their family, and the community to present a non-biological child as one's own child. In an "Islamic adoption" the adopted child is still explicitly not your child. Changing a child's family name, reissuing birth certificates in the adoptive parents' names ... these sorts of things would be strictly unacceptable.

Third, and more important than all of that, it is considered the right of the child to be raised as a Muslim in a Muslim environment. In an either/or situation it is seen as more in the long-term best interests of the child to be raised Muslim than to be adopted. That is not so much perceived as a matter of the law exerting a right over the child as the law fulfilling a responsibility to the child.

[LessTraveledBy]

Thank you, everyone! (By the way, no clue how mny original message was posted twice. Sorry about that.)

[LaPaix]

Hi, I rarely post here but I think I may be able to help, my husband is Muslim and I have lived in Morocco and Algeria. In the Quran, it says that if a child does not breast feed from the adoptive/foster mother then, if it is a girl, she has to wear the veil around the men in her adoptive family and if its a boy, the girls need to wear the veil in front of him. There is some debate as to the interpretation of this but I have meet many Muslims who believe this. From my experience, the idea of adoption is not in contemporary Islamic culture, but I have only lived in 2 countries and the ideas differ greatly among Muslims. I also volunteered in an orphanage in Thailand while I was in college and the people who ran the orphanage told me that adoption was also a taboo in Thai culture (a mainly Buddhist country)

Muslims believe that everyone is born into Islam and then converted to something else based on what their parents believe, Muslim men can marry a Christian or Jewish women because, according to Islam, if the father is Muslim then the children will be raised Muslim. This is the reasoning behind the law stating that the adoptive parents need to be Muslim, the country wants to ensure that the child is raised in the faith they were born into, and it is impossible to do that if at least the father is not Muslim. Islam is really much more than a belief system, its a lifestyle. I personally don't agree with most of it, but I had to respect it while living there and its the same when looking to adopt from those countries, it is what it is.

I hope this help shed some light on your questions and I really wish you all the best in your adoption search!

[Jane93]

I will say that in incidentally discussing adoption with some Muslim friends (originally of Egyptian origin and of Indian origin), there may be some cultural factors (versus religious in play).  Basically the attitude was that you wouldn't want to adopt because if there was no family willing to step up and take the child there was either something "wrong" with the family or the child (and if there is something "wrong" you wouldn't want the child).  Of course this could be individual attitudes rather than something broad across the cultures.

Interestingly enough, they were having a hard time wrapping their minds around my family situation (I am the only grandchild on both sides of my family), so the idea that other family just might not exist was not really in their frame of reference.

[SundayCrepes]

This isn't really addressing the op's questions, but I thought I'd share.

In our state, there is only one adoption agency that will work with non-religious (read non-Christian) families. We had trouble with that agency so we were forced to find our own match. It all worked out well for us (we met our daughter 3 months after we were certified, the fees were really cheap, and we have an amazing daughter.)

However, I think it is wrong that in the US the courts allow religious organizations to do court work (the whole adoption process) AND to discriminate against families based on their religion. If the birth family has religious preferences, then that's fine, but the agencies should not be allowed to do this. 

[EFmom]

While I personally think religion is a terrible excuse to deny a child a loving home, I do agree that it is the right of every country to define its own criteria for adoption, whether I like it or not.  There are lots of criteria I find troubling and religion is just one of them.

[marsupial-mom]

I don't agree with it, but it's far from the top of my list of problems with adoption.

[LessTraveledBy]

Thanks, everyone. This is simply something I keep thinking about.

I wish that countries, since they want to have these rules, would make them a bit more reasonable or, on the other hand, stricter. Just about anyone can find someone to write them a note saying they have been practicing Christians for 5 years. Where I live, this rule truthfully excludes about 95% of people and, yet, many of the adoptive parents don't think twice about finding someone to sign for them. The Morocco case it a bit different, as it keeps the opinions of others out of the process puts the trust and responsibility on the adoptive parents, only, when it comes to thr truth about the religious affiliation. At the same time, however, they get the true Muslims and the true liars, the former can happily sign saying they are or will become Muslim, the former will sign the document, knowing very well they are not being truthful.

[Liquesce]

Is the required documentation regarding a willingness to convert in the future, or is it an actual conversion document, as in "by signing this I attest that I am from this moment on Muslim"?

The latter would mean that to whatever extent Islamic law is practiced in the state's law it would be fully applicable to that person. In terms of international adoption obviously that is still irrelevant, but it may be a carry-over from domestic adoption law and law involving foreign ex-pats living inside Morocco. In those circumstances to be shown to have been lying could affect continued custody.

And I suppose a promise to convert that is not fulfilled could function similarly anyway, now that I think about it.

[LessTraveledBy]

There has been at least one couple that wanted to adopt from Morocco a second time and were denied. However, the crazy thing is that the denial came from the Bristish social workers, not Morocco. The social worked doing the home study was not happy with the couples level of being Muslim or something like that. It does seem, though, that there might be more to the story than I have read. 

These rules seem to be justified enough when the biological parents are part of the majority (so in Morocco, Muslims). However, just about every country has people who do not share the faith of the majority. If their child is adopted, the adoptive family still has to believe the way the majority does, not as the biological parents do. That does seem very wrong to me. Granted in Morocco, fox example, if I remember correctly 98% of people are Muslim and most of the 2% or whatever, would be foreigners... But still.

[Tjej]

I think it is great that countries care enough about children to make laws they believe will be the best for the children.  I think that when a person gives up or loses their status as parent/guardian and the government steps in to do the job they are going to make some different choices than the original parents would make.  Good on the government for trying to make a choice that most parents would agree with.

I think there are enough kids in the world that are adoptable that it isn't preventing parents from adopting in general.  If people are going to lie about being Muslim to adopt from Morocco I think that's on their own heads and souls, it's not Morocco's fault. 

I also think that if the laws of a country are not working for them they will probably change them.  And if they don't, well, I suppose if I had enough of an interest in the country I could be a part of promoting the idea of change and work towards that.

I just don't think that Moroccan adoption laws are really anybody's business who isn't Moroccan, muslim, or extremely interested in Morocco itself.  Is that insular and short-sighted?  Well, some might think so. I hope not.  I think there are so many issues like this that we CAN make a difference in if we act locally or even nationally within our own country, that pondering the choices of a distant foreign body doesn't seem nearly as practical as pondering the difference we can make where we are.

Tjej

[LaPaix]

Just have something add in regards to people lying about being Muslim. In Algeria, I knew many converts who had to prove that they were practicing Muslims in order to inherit property from their Algerian spouses. This process was VERY rigorous and they asked people's friends, families, co-workers etc. to sign affidavits stating they were still practicing. I really doubt Morocco would just accept a piece of paper from a couple stating they were going to or had converted. 

I also think when we start to look at countries and cultures very different from our own and say this is fair/this isn't right, etc. we start to toe the line of cultural relativism. Morocco's adoption laws may not seem just to us but I know, from living there, they are justified and necessary for many Moroccans. This is true for all laws saying Muslims are entitled to x based on their religion, we may not think it is fair for the very small minority, but without understand the country, culture and religion, I don't think its productive to judge.

Keep in mind that Morocco was protectorate of France for many years and during this time if you were Muslim or a native Moroccan you were denied basic rights and segregated from the "superior" French society. So now, post-French rule, North African countries have a strong desire to protect their language, religion and culture (what constitutes these things is a point of contention in the region). I assume the adoption law stems from this thinking as well.

Again good luck in your adoption search!

[LessTraveledBy]

Strangely enough, a piece of paper signed in front of a Moroccan judge (or whatever the right term is) is exactly what is needed. Nothing more.

Originally Posted by LaPaix I really doubt Morocco would just accept a piece of paper from a couple stating they were going to or had converted. 

[Jane93]

I also think when we start to look at countries and cultures very different from our own and say this is fair/this isn't right, etc. we start to toe the line of cultural relativism. Morocco's adoption laws may not seem just to us but I know, from living there, they are justified and necessary for many Moroccans. This is true for all laws saying Muslims are entitled to x based on their religion, we may not think it is fair for the very small minority, but without understand the country, culture and religion, I don't think its productive to judge.""

== Sorry, I think this sort of thinking is unproductive.  Taking it to the extreme, I'm sure segregation seemed justifed and necessary for many white South Africans.  However, that doesn't remove how productive it is to judge.

[SubliminalDarkness]

I would just second something said above. In Islam, it is believed that you are a Muslim from birth. They don't see these children as neutral entities to adapt to whatever family they end up in. They see them as Muslim children, deserving of a Muslim upbringing. 

Do I agree with it? No. But it's not an easy issue to resolve.