ADOPTING PAKISTANI BABIES


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Canadian would-be parents are facing severe red tape when trying to adopt from Muslim countries, according to adoption experts who are calling on the government to take action. What has the government done about it? Nothing," says Toronto immigration lawyer Preevanda Sapru. "It hasn't even come to the forefront that there is a problem for people to adopt from countries where there is Sharia law."

Sharia law is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term Sharīa refers to God's immutable divine law  which refers to its human scholarly interpretations created by Islamic leaders in ancient times.

In a sudden change of policy in 2013, the Canadian government suspended adoptions from Pakistan, arguing that the country has no legal equivalent of Canada's definition of the transfer of parenting responsibilities.

The Canadian government's Adopt A Child site says, "Pakistani law prohibits adoption from that country, instead recognizing a form of guardianship called kafala; applications for related placements are no longer accepted." 

However, Saskatoon immigration lawyer Haidah Amirzadeh says the problem is much bigger than that. She has been working with a Canadian couple whose five-year battle to bring their adopted son home from Pakistan ended successfully, She says many parents adopting from Muslim countries are finding that they too, are being road blocked, and that their children may never be able to become Canadians simply because of the laws in the countries in which they were born. She believes that this is a very serious problem and that it needs public attention, since it does not only stop at Pakistan. This is the problem with almost all Muslim countries.

She adds that she has clients from Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, and Afghanistan—all of whom cannot bring their prospective adopted children home because the Canadian government won't recognize the adoptions, even though it has not instituted formal suspensions for those countries.

It's a problem that Canadian citizen Nusrat Munshi, 47, knows all too well. In 2012, Munshi was working in Pakistan and obtained legal guardianship of a baby named Aleeza just two months after the little girl was abandoned at a Karachi orphanage.

But in October, 20114, Canada's Federal Court ruled that baby Aleeza wouldn't be coming home with Ms. Munshi. The court reasoned that the pair didn't meet Canada's standard of a genuine parent-child relationship.  in fact, in 2012, a Karachi court explicitly allowed Munshi to take baby Aleeza to Canada for adoption.

In my opinion, that is a really stupid ruling on the part of the Canadian government. Thousands of babies in Canada have been adopted and the daughter/mother relationship is g considered enuine.

The hearing was the hardest part, Munshi says, because she is the only mother Aleeza has ever known. "I haven't given birth to her, but she's the centre of my life," says Munshi from Karachi, where she remains since the ruling. If that baby isn’t adopted, it will grow up without experiencing the love that a mother can give to a child as it grows older.

In order to be recognized here, Canada requires that adoptions first be completed in a child's home country. There is the problem. If Pakistani authorities don’t want their orphan babies living in Canada or anywhere else, then both the babies and the prospective parents are the losers.

In fact, many Muslim nations have no legal provision for permanent adoption, and instead use kafala guardianship.

Canada maintains that kafala does not qualify as adoption, arguing that the arrangement does not sever legal ties with a child's biological parents. Surely if the child is in an orphanage, the child and its biological parents are already severed.

Other Western countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, have policies allowing kafala arrangements to be legally recognized there.

Canada's position on kafala leaves families who have received legal guardianship in Muslim countries being caught in a bureaucratic web that appears to be unique to Canada, and subsequently, the adoptive parents are unable to bring their adoptive children home. The trauma is obviously apparent to both the children and the parents who wish to share their lives with their adoptive children.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokeswoman Nancy Caron says it is not Canada's policy to discriminate against any country when it comes to adoption. Despite her statement, the discrimination exists.

She also said, "Eligibility of individual countries for inter-country adoption is determined on a case-by-case basis by the provinces and territories based on Canadian laws, and with respect for international laws as well as the statutes and wishes of the originating country."

If the originating country doesn’t object for adoptive babies in their country being taken to Canada or any other country, what seems to be the problem with respect to the baby Munshi wants to bring to Canada and cannot do so? 

Whether it's an official government policy or not, the red tape effectively discriminates against Muslim families. "It's like saying, 'You're born there, so you're doomed.” That seems to be what happens in Canada.

And while a formal ban on adoptions from Muslim countries isn't currently official policy, Canada hasn't entirely ruled it out.

Documents obtained through access to information show that in 2013, the provinces and territories debated a ban on adoptions not only from Pakistan, but other Muslim countries, too. At least two provinces, British Columbia and Ontario, refused the proposal, according to the documents.

At this time, there is no intention of extending this closure to inter-country adoptions from other countries, although this does not limit such actions being taken in the future if determined to be warranted."  according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

That statement tells you nothing. It is typical blah, blah, blah.

Michael Blugerman, a Toronto-based adoption agent who was licensed to process adoptions from Pakistan for years until the 2013 ban, says while the government needs to make sure adoptions are legitimate, lumping cases from Muslim countries together isn't the answer. "It's what I'd call a cultural-religious-profiling problem." Unquote

Meanwhile, Canada and Pakistan differ over the reasons for the adoption ban. Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson Remi Lariviere says that adoptions from Pakistan were suspended through "ongoing procedural evaluations by the Government of Canada with input from the Government of Pakistan." But it seems Pakistan is not objecting to adoptions.

Legal experts say that as long as the Canadian government refuses to recognize such an order as valid for adoption, would-be parents such as Munshi are caught in legal limbo.

Canadian officials need to get their brains in order  to arrive at a solution that makes everyone happy.