Lawyers: Abandoned children in Yemen have the right to citizenship

An old woman in her forties used to search through the garbage every day to find food for her goats. One day, while she was searching through the garbage, she found a newborn baby covered with piece of cloth and a Qur’an beside him. The woman took the child, and decided to raise him.  Abandoned children (children whose parentage is unknown) have an extremely difficult time in Yemeni society.

An abandoned child has no right to a surname, which causes problems with officialdom and carries heavy stigma in Islamic societies. But Yemeni law does give abandoned children certain rights. For example, Yemeni law states that any abandoned child born on Yemeni soil has the right to Yemeni citizenship.  

“Abandoned children here in Yemen are better off than in some neighbouring countries, because Yemeni law gives all abandoned children who have been born on Yemeni soil the right to hold Yemeni nationality,” said Nabela al-Mufti, a lawyer. She added that Yemeni law has not yet dealt with all the problems abandoned and illegitimate children face, but it has granted them some rights. “These children have the right to a surname; the Civil Affairs Authority must give these children names and surnames, and register them under these names in the civil registry.” 

Al-Mufti added that Islam forbids adoption; therefore, even if people take these children in and care for them, they cannot give these children their own names because they are not their own children. If these families do that, these children will have the right to inherit them when they die, in the same way as their natural children do. 

“What happens in Yemen is that families who have taken an abandoned child in go to the Civil Affairs Authority and say the child is their own, so the child takes the family’s surname,” al-Mufti said. “Yemenis are very kind people. So, when they find an abandoned child in front of their house, they take him in and raise him as their own,” al-Mufti said. “But they do not realize that is against Islam, they just follow their emotions and feelings.” 

Some mothers of the adopting families try to breast-feed these abandoned children along with their own children. As a result, they become their own children, according to Islamic law, said al-Mufti.

Sometimes in such cases, when the natural children know that their brother or sister is not their own flesh and blood, they go to court to contest his right to inherit once the parents have died. This weakens the relationship within families and makes brothers and sisters hate each other, so because of this Islam does not allow adoption.

Al-Mufti said that to find abandoned children in front of houses or in garbage is not a new phenomenon, but is on the increase. “I myself have heard of many cases of babies being abandoned. The major reason behind this increase is that these days lots of refuges of different nationalities are coming to Yemen, when they give birth they may have no means to support the child, and sometimes they abandon them. But even the children of refugees have the right to Yemeni nationality as long as they were born on Yemeni soil.” 

There are also cases of children who are found in front of the houses of the rich, or in the garbage. “I have heard of many stories like this, but the one that really saddens me is that one day people found the remains of a child in the garbage; dogs had eaten him,” said Hanan Saleh, a student at Sana’a University. 

Saleh said that she thinks abandoned children are the result of adultery. “If people didn’t do what is forbidden, we would not find, or even hear of these things. Islam has guided us to the straight path. I wonder how people could do such things; how they could not think of the effect on the child, who has done nothing wrong,” she said. 

Officials at the Civil Affairs Authority said that foster families who fail to register these children in the civil registry, do not understand just how this will damage the child’s interests in the future. “Often, people come to us with a child who is around four years old and ask us to register him or her in the civil registry; they only come to us then because they want to put the child in school,” said Najeeb al-Ashwal, an official at the civil registry.

Al-Ashwal added that these foster families often insist on having the child registered by the name of the foster father; they do not realize that this is forbidden both by civil law and by Islam. Officials at the Civil Affairs Authority, choose names for these children and try to choose names with some kind of religious content. 

“Three weeks ago, a woman came to us with three abandoned children. She said that she had found them in front of her house. She insisted on that these children should take her husband’s name. But we strongly refused. So she left without registering them in the civil registry,” Ahmed Al-Sourbi, deputy director of civil registry said.

Al-Ashwal said that on the birth certificate form, the field for the parents’ names is left blank. This is so that if in future someone claims the child as their own, their names can be entered in the blank field.

Al-Sourbi, agreed, and said that would-be foster families should report finding abandoned children to the police, as the law requires. 

“People who intend to foster a child should go to the police and report the particulars to them, such as where he was found, what he was wearing, and if there was anything that might distinguish who his parents were, or if they found anything next to him, such as some money or a Qur’an,” he said. The reason behind this is that some day, someone might come and claim the child, the police will ask him to tell them where he left the child and to describe the child in order to make sure that this child really is his own.  Al-Sourbi also agreed with al-Mufti that the number of abandoned children is increasing. “In the past, we used to get one or two abandoned children every three years. But this year we have received six cases, three of them from that woman who refused to register them in the civil registry.”    

Some abandoned children are placed in the Childhood Safety Center, where they can live a normal live and have all their needs met. “We have received around five cases this year. Their foster families brought them to us, because the child has become a young man and the family has a young daughter. This child is not supposed to see these young ladies because he is a stranger according to Islam,” said Aysha Moharam, the Manager of Childhood Safety Center. 

Moharam said that when policemen find these children in the streets, they bring them directly to us. She said that when a child who has been brought up in a family without knowing they are not his real family, and is then told that he has to leave the house because he is not of their blood, he despairs. 

“One of the adopted families came to us with a boy of thirteen. They told us that he was originally a foundling. When we ask the mother why she had brought him to us, she replied that she had three young daughters and it was forbidden for him to see them,” she said. 

Moharam said that the child really loves his (foster) family and loves his sisters. “When he came to us, he really was depressed, because he felt that he would never see his sisters (who in reality are not his blood sisters) again. I tried to calm him down.” 

“Islam forbids adoption for many reasons. For example, these children may one day ask their foster families to give them a share in their inheritance,” said Safa Ali, a student at Sana’a University. Ali said that her neighbors had found a child in front of their house. They took him in, and brought him up as if he were their own. “But when this child became a young man and his foster father died, he demanded his brothers give him a share of his inheritance. Now the family is at daggers drawn with the young man, who is convinced that he is of the same flesh and blood. What makes things even worse is that this man is threatening to kill his eldest brother if he does not give him his inheritance.”

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