One thing I learnt during my travels in Islamic countries is that the attitude to adoption is very different from that commonly found in westerns countries. Although the Quran clearly states that everyone should respect orphans and not steal their belongings, the Holy book also makes statements that imply that orphans are not really your children. Most likely as a result of this, it is not common to adopt children in Islamic countries. If a child is orphaned, he or she stays with the extended family. This family support system means that very rarely children are left without anybody. However, when this happens, family friends most often take the child under their wing. This is one major difference between the west and Islamic countries - the family network is generally much tighter.
One particular story stuck in my mind. we were visiting an old friend of my colleague for dinner. She was very kind to cook me a proper Arabic meal with their traditional foods. We were enjoying the chit chat, mainly about NGOs and development work in Jordan since this is the field that we were all working in. I was being educated on the situation of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan when I asked about orphans. This questions was in my mind primarily because I had recently been to Kenya where they are thousands of orphans due to the high epidemic of HIV.
‘Adopting is not common practice in Islamic countries’, our host explained. ‘Most Muslims want their biological children and don’t even consider adoption. Somehow they seem to think that an adopted child is really not your own. Even when you can’t have children.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked, somewhat surprised. At that point, I had not read the Quran. Sometime later when I did, I found some passages in the Holy book that could imply adopted children are not really your children.
‘It says something about it in the Quran’, my colleague explained. ‘Their Holy book tells them to respect orphans and to help them, but at the same time states that they are not really your children.’
Yes’, our host continued to explain. ‘My brother and his wife couldn’t have their own biological child, yet they really wanted to start their own family. Since we are Christian, they started thinking about and considering adoption. Since Jordan is an Islamic country, there was no way for them to officially adopt here. They talked with different authorities, but it was just not possible or would have taken years and years. This is when we started helping him as a family. We started researching ways as to how to help them adopt and finally decided to do this in the black market. We found a person who helps orphaned children to find families. In the end, we could find a little boy to my bother and his wife. Now they are a very happy family of three.’
‘Oh’, I said in amazement. ‘Is there a black adoption market?’
‘Not as such, not a big one anyway’, our host elaborated. ‘There are some people around who help in this, but it is not common for people to seek adoption, as I explained. But if you ask around and get to know the right people, those children needing parents can find those adults wanting to be parents. It all comes together in the end.’
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More information on adoption laws in Jordan:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ifpdial/info/national/jo.htm
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