or entrusting them to individuals/families, the
majority of which take place outside, and are at
times contrary to, the legal norms in place. Such
practices are a common heritage and shared by all
social strata. The institutional codes come into play
only in dire cases of inheritance or larger family
conflicts while, generally speaking, what consti-
tutes a family in the cultural imaginary transcends
those legally delimited relations.
Research shows that it is women who are the pri-
mary instigators and actors in these other forms of
adoptive transactions. The reasons for this can be
explained through educational and practical terms;
first, girls’ education and socializing processes still
emphasize, and at times exclusively maintain, that
the ideal role for the woman is that of the procreat-
ing mother. Marriage is therefore merely instru-
mental for begetting offspring and families bereft
of children are considered abnormal and sterility is
viewed as a curse; kafàlaand other alternative
forms of adoption endow a woman with a raison
d’être in terms of the role she and her culture have
created for her. Second, birthing, nurturing, and
rearing of newborns occur in largely circumscribed
female spaces and hence circulation of information
is simple and informal transactions are easily car-
ried through. Most women prefer to adopt girls
rather than boys as little girls are seen as allies and
as potential household support and worthwhile
emotional investment by their putative mothers;
girls are, therefore, a scarcity in most centers for
abandoned babies in the three countries.
In Morocco and Algeria legal kafàlais state con-
trolled and obeys institutional norms, and the same
is true for open adoption in Tunisia. Abandoned
babies are usually born in or brought to centers
where they are taken care of until they are chosen
by a family or an individual. Those babies who are
not selected are sent to orphanages (either state
owned or run by philanthropists) at different age
limits. In each country, a number of administrative
steps need to be fulfilled prior to a child being taken
home by a family (or individual) because, in Mo-
rocco and Algeria, children are considered wards of
the state and are only entrusted to families for their
upkeep; legally the kafàlaparty cannot be consid-
ered a parent. In Tunisia the name of the adoptive
party is given to the adopted child; in Morocco and
Algeria names differ as they are markers of pater-
nal affiliation, which can officially only be the out-
come of birth within a legal marriage. Outside the
legal frame, however, and when women contract a
secret adoption with the approval of their hus-
bands, or swap children with neighbors or other
family members, they create a family unit that emu-
turkey 5lates the biological one and there are no legal con-
straints on parenting. In the cases of secret adop-
tions, families pretend the child has been legally
born while in other cases various means of agree-
ment may be worked out to the benefit of all parties
concerned. Young women who give birth outside
marriage, a terrible crime in societies where the
code of honor and shame still structure women’s
lives, often give up their newborn in public spaces,
to intermediaries, to other women and individuals
for their own survival. This practice is widespread
although it is difficult to track such traffic empiri-
cally as it is not only illegal but a highly taboo topic.
Some non-governmental organizations in Morocco
and Algeria have started working with young
mothers who refuse to abandon their newborns as
the shared belief is that only a biological family can
be an ideal environment for any child. This is espe-
cially true for the case of children born out of wed-
lock given that the larger social environment
brands them with as bastards, a violent stigma and
a means of exclusion that can at least be tempered
by the mother’s presence.Bibliography
J. Bargach, Orphans of Islam. Family, abandonment, and
secret adoption in Morocco, New York 2002.
A. Gil≠adi, Children of Islam. Concepts of childhood in
medieval Muslim society, London 1992.
L. Lamber, Children in changing families. A study of
adoption and illegitimacy, London 1980.
A. Rugh, Within the circle. Parents and children in an
Arab village, New York 1997.Jamila BargachTurkeyAncient Turkic tribes had different motives and
practices regarding adoption. Among Yakut Turks
adoption was made for humane reasons, while
wealthier Uygur Turks utilized it for servitude and
slavery. But whatever the purpose was, the adopted
child’s rights of inheritance were equal to those of
biological children and the prohibition of marriage
with family members was equally applied to them.
Only men had the right to adopt children, and they
could adopt both sexes.
The custom of adoption existed in Arabian com-
munities until the revelation of the Qur±ànic verse
saying that adopted children could not bear the
father’s name and that there would be no prohibi-
tion of marriage with them abolished adoption in
Islamic law (Qur±àn 33). Nevertheless, the care of
orphans, and rearing and marrying them, came to
be regarded as a pious act (sevap). Polygamy is a