To Jessica - unwanted pregnancies and babies

Submitted by Nadia, Mar 19, 2017 at 16:00

Hi Jessica, the number of unwanted pregnancies, babies and single mothers in MENA is on the rise. The reasons - men no longer marry as they do not want the burden of wives and kids, they prefer to marry foreigners, poverty and financial gains driven female prostitution, migration, lack of education and access to contraception and so on. Only in Tunisia abortion is legal on demand. In most of the other countries it is not easily obtainable and not cheap. Many women die of backstreet abortions, other are killed by the family as they are a huge embarassement and bring shame and social stigma.

In Algeria, with the new laws an illegal immigrant can neither marry nor recognise a child and without a father the woman can not obtain a Birth certificate for the baby. These children do not exist, have no papers and are stateless. They can not go to school. Some NGO managed to enroll some of these kids in the French lycee of Algiers. Rich working women can usually manage but it is hard. I hope it gets better for them. The problem stems from the legislation and not Islam.

In former French colonies there is still a law that gives women the right to give birth anonymous and the child can never trace his/her mother. Many babies are abandoned at birth and other children are thrown in streets later as the mother dies or realises she can't look after the child. More than 50 000 children live on the streets alone in Morocco.

Adoption as we know it is only legal in Tunisia. In other countries foster care untill 18 is all a child could get. Google kafala, kafil, makfoul plus a mena country of Your choice and u'll read interesting things. Sometimes "adoptees" find out they are adopted when one of the adoptive parents die and they are left homeless as only blood relatives inherit.

Abortions are done by ingesting misoprostol bought legally in Morocco. I do not know about other countries. There r medicinal plants also - concoctions of parsley, aloe and others. The libyan coast was once Greeces main supplier of silphium - an abortion inducing plant.

In countries where Hanafi school of thought is dominant abortion is legal until 40 days after conception. In Syria, Iraq, Lebanon it used to be quite legal in the past. I don't know now? Maybe.

In the Emirates unwed women go to give birth in ths USA, bring back the child on American passport and the ruler gives the child Emirati citizenship as a present. Otherwise it can only be obtained if the father is an Emirati citizen.

http://observers.france24.com/en/20150330-morocco-women-rights-single-mother-children

Have a look at the article and thank heavens You are where You are. Love

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