Adopting tsunami orphans: Won’t someone think of the children?

Last name, please?

As if they haven’t faced enough trauma, Muslim orphans in Indonesia are being placed in the middle of a religious battle, with one evangelical Christian organization attempting to place 300 “tsunami orphans” in homes where the group could “plant Christian principles as early as possible.” While hardline Muslim groups in Indonesia had earlier accused all Christian charities operating in the disaster area of just such a thing (most of the major ones, like Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service, have strict policies against proselytizing), this is the first known instance of a Christian group openly attempting to do so. “These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat,” read the website of WorldHelp (which was quietly changed after the media started calling). “If we can place them in a Christian children’s home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people.” The Indonesian government stepped in and banned the transfer, moving orphans instead into government-run and Muslim charitiable shelters. But with strict controls against non-Muslim adoption of Muslim orphans, are Muslim families filling the gap? (Western “closed” adoption, where the orphan takes the surname of the adoptive parent and links to blood relatives are severed, differs from Islamic “open” adoption, in which an adopted child retains his or her own biological family name and history.) In both the West and the Muslim world, the number of prospective Muslim parents are less than the need, and far less than the number in the West willing to adopt. While Muslims around the world are scrambling to find prospective Muslim parents, some Christian groups remain undeterred. “If we are going to depend on Muslims to go in and help Muslims,” remarked Rev. Franklin Graham, “well, they aren’t coming.”

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.