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| Together for children without parental care - Photo: A. Gabriel |
Recognising these children's particular vulnerability in society and the need to secure their protection in alternative care settings, since 2005, intergovernmental bodies, NGOs, some governments, and young people have been cooperating to draft such guidelines. The "UN Guidelines for the Appropriate Provision and Use of Alternative Care" (hereafter simply UN Guidelines) now seem set for adoption by the UN General Assembly in autumn 2008.
The extensive participation of SOS-Kinderdorf International, and especially of the director of SOS Children's Villages Lebanon, in the drafting of the UN Guidelines paved the way for the SOS Regional Office for the Middle East to initiate a similar process in the region. Together, SOS-Kinderdorf International, the Arab Council for Childhood and Development and the Arab League of States launched a process not only to establish an Arab set of guidelines and promote their implementation, but also to put the issues facing children without parental care in the Arab world on the public agenda.
At the recent regional workshop "Towards Arab Guidelines" held in Cairo, Egypt, one such topic that received significant attention was the delicate issue of children born out of wedlock. While analysing the UN Guidelines from a regional standpoint, the over 150 delegates from 17 Arab countries, UNICEF, and Arab and international NGOs took the opportunity to think critically about the situation of this particular group of children. Although, according to many Islamic scholars, discrimination against children born out of wedlock is by no means justifiable from a religious perspective, the reality remains that in many countries these children are often abandoned, stigmatised or denied the basic rights and services they are entitled to.
Participants also discussed "kafalah", a form of care or guardianship used in the Islamic world, where adoption usually is not accepted. In Islam, blood ties cannot be broken, therefore a family may take in a child, but the child is not entitled to the same rights as a biological child, in particular the name and inheritance. It was generally agreed that kafalah is a long-term form of alternative care that should be monitored, as it can be abused to the detriment of the child.
This process of adapting the UN Guidelines to best fit the cultural, religious and legal particularities of a region is the first of its kind. It is an important step for the child care system in the Arab world and it also opens the door to other such regional processes across the globe. This will make the implementation of the UN Guidelines more robust, and ultimately help children without parental care get the best alternative care possible.