Hail security officers recently found yet another victim abandoned on the streets. This recent phenomenon has been occurring wherein newborn infants are abandoned in public places such as near mosques and in front of hospitals and even supermarkets, Al-Sharq daily reported.

An employee at a local orphanage said in some cases, the mother is obliged to abandon the child in order to protect her reputation in society but citizen Abdullah Alrazni said while the “crime” of abandoning one’s child has existed since the oldest of times, it is very hard to justify why a mother would abandon an innocent soul let alone her own child.

Psychiatrist Waleed Alzahrani said children are being abandoned at alarming rates. He said a lack of religious consciousness, poor familial supervision and absence of awareness campaigns and seminars regarding the matter are aiding in the increase of other contributing factors such as illicit sexual conduct and abuse.

“Many of these mothers who have abandoned their child, are then haunted by nightmares and suicidal thoughts as the guilt of their actions takes hold in their hearts. But the real victim is the child as he/she will forever be haunted by the past and it is all due to the reckless and inhumane behavior of his/her parents,” he said.

Commenting on the matter, Preacher Eid Alramih said fornication is against human nature.

“The amount of suffering and pain the act can bring upon its potential victim, the child, can be immeasurable. Moreover, the child resulting from the act is destined for a life of misery and social isolation as he will not be accepted by the families of either parent. He will have no one to share celebrations and social occasions with. That is what fornication is, a few moments of pleasure succeeded by an eternity of pain,” he said.

Lawyer Sulaiman Alajlan said the main factors that lead to the abandonment of children are a lack of religious awareness, poverty and late marriages. “Abandonment is usually the last resort after trying abortion or killing the newborn right after birth,” he said.

In some cases, economic circumstances force parents to abandon their children as they are financially incapable of providing for the child. In such cases, they either give the child to someone else who has the means to take care of a child or abandon the child completely.

“No sane mother or father will abandon their child in the middle of the road, near mosques, or by the gates of hospitals or markets. However, the previously mentioned factors can play a huge part in pressuring the parents to take such an inhumane course of action. Often times, the parents hope that they will be reunited with their abandoned child sometime in the future. Some even go to great extremes of finding their child again just to watch him/her from a distance,” said Alajlan.

Alajlan emphasized the importance of raising abandoned children with Islamic values so they won’t end up repeating their parents’ mistakes.

Islam forbids the adoption of abandoned children due to a number of reasons. Among these reasons is that the child could then be included in the foster family’s inheritance even though the child has no legal right to it. Moreover, the child is still a stranger and so Islamic gender segregation laws still apply, meaning the foster mother must cover from the child when he reaches adolescence. The same applies to a foster father and his adopted daughter.

 
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