Adoption and the Care of Orphan Children Essay Example for Free

Adoption and the Care of Orphan Children Essay A common conception is that Islamic law forbids adoptions. However, this belief misses the complexity of Islamic law, the scope of adoption laws and practices across the world, and the overwhelming emphasis on taking care of orphans and foundlings found within Islamic sources. Contemporary adoption practices are immensely complex issues, overlapping with children’s rights, international and national laws, human psychology, economic, social, and religious concerns, and the ethics of lineage, identity, property and inheritance rights. In this position paper, the Muslim Women’s Shura Council considers whether adoption can be possible within an Islamic framework. After examining Islamic texts and history alongside social science research and the international consensus on children’s rights, the Council finds that adoption can be acceptable under Islamic law and its principle objectives, as long as important ethical guidelines are followed. This statement consults the Quran, the example of the Prophet Muhammad (sunna), the objectives and principles of Islamic law (maqasid al-sharia), Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh), and social science data. The Shura Council finds that, instead of banning adoption, Islamic sources have brought various ethical restrictions to the process, condemning dissimulation and foregrounding compassion, transparency, and justice. These restrictions closely resemble what is known today as the practice of open adoption. Therefore, when all efforts to place orphaned children with their extended family have been exhausted, open, legal, ethical adoptions can be a preferable Islamically-grounded alternative to institutional care and other unstable arrangements. According to Islamic and universal standards of children’s rights, all children have the right to grow up in a nurturing, loving environment where their physiological, psychological, and intellectual needs are met. All children have the right to know their lineage and to celebrate their unique national, cultural, linguistic, and spiritual identity. All children have the right to a safe, supportive environment where their rights to dignity, education, and the development of their talents are well respected. The best interests of the child should be the primary consideration in all decisions relating to children, including adoption. Orphan: Different states and international institutions have different criteria for determining whether a child is an orphan. UNICEF classifies any child that has lost one parent as an orphan and estimates that approximately 143 million children are currently orphans.1 For the purposes of this document, an orphan is a minor who is bereft of parental care due to death, disappearance, or abandonment by either the mother or the father, as well as situations where the parent voluntarily or involuntarily terminates the parental relationship. This definition combines several concepts in classical Arabic, including yatim (fatherless child) and laqit (foundling). Adoption: Adoption can be defined as the legal creation of a parent-child relationship, with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof, between a child and adults who are not his or her biological parents. Adoptions incorporate a child into a family as offspring and sibling, regardless of genetic ties. There are two main categories of adoption practices, generally termed as closed adoptions and open adoptions. However, in reality most adoption practices fall somewhere on a continuum between fully open and fully closed. In â€Å"closed† or â€Å"confidential† adoptions, the birth family and the adoptive family have no identifying information about each other. Children may not be informed that they have been adopted, and they may have no way of tracing biological kin. If the child comes from a different cultural background than his or her adoptive parents, their heritage might be marginalized or ignored. Closed adoptions, therefore, have the potential to dissolve all ties between an adoptee and her biological family. â€Å"Open† adoptions, which are becoming increasingly common across the world, allow for a full disclosure of identities on both sides. Open adoptions facilitate direct interaction between the adoptive family, the adopted child, and any birth relatives. The child’s birth culture may more easily be respected and promoted by the adoptive family and incorporated into the family’s daily life. However, the categories of closed and open are better understood as idealized types, as most families experience a hybrid form of adoption that comprises elements of both open and closed adoption practices. The empirical data on the risks and benefits of each type of adoption has shown mixed results, with some adopted children embracing the opportunity to contact their birth families and others experiencing confusion and insecurity.2 Generally, however, open adoptions are associated with better psychological and behavioral outcomes for the child. With the exception of Indonesia, Malaysia, Somalia, Tunisia, and Turkey, the laws of most Muslimmajority states do not currently permit legal adoption. Instead, laws permit a system of guardianship (kafala), which resembles foster-parenting, but is more stable. Kafala is defined as â€Å"the commitment to voluntarily take care of the maintenance, of the education and of the protection of a minor, in the same way a *parent would do for a child+.†5 According to Jamila Bargach, kafala is seen as â€Å"primarily a gift of care and not a substitute for lineal descent.† In other words, kafala involves the obligations of guardianship and maintenance without the creation of legal ties, which would produce specific personal status legal entitlements. This type of guardianship does not sever the biological family bonds of the child or alter the descent lines for the adopting family. Unlike foster-parenting, kafala is intended to be a permanent arrangement for a minor. Like fosterparenting and adoption, kafala is mediated by the state, in contrast to informal or â€Å"customary† adoptions which take place within families or through secret agreements. Convergences between Kafala and Adoption Whereas this statement focuses on adoption and not kafala, in some cases kafala may lead to adoption. Countries with strict application of â€Å"non-international kafala,† like Iran, Mauritania, and Egypt, reject any legal recognition between kafala and adoption. Citizens of these countries who reside in other countries, where adoption is the law of the land, cannot gain guardianship of a child with the intention of adopting that child in their state of residency. Other states, like Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Pakistan, allow for placements of kafala children abroad, particularly with nationals living in foreign countries, with certain stipulations. Tunisia and Indonesia allow for a full convergence of kafala and adoption, limiting adoptions to national applicants, whether living in the country or abroad. Islamic Law: The term â€Å"Islamic law† refers to two related, yet distinct concepts, which are often conflated: Sharia and Fiqh. Sharia literally means â€Å"the way† and is a transcendental ideal that embodies the justice and compassion inherent in the totality of God’s will. Fiqh, which literally means â€Å"understanding,† is Islamic jurisprudence and juristic law, which has developed from the eighth century onwards as a human effort to interpret the Sharia. Fiqh has been developed by Muslim legal scholars through analysis of the Quran and the example (sunna) of the Prophet Muhammad, with the aim of securing justice according to the context of each society, time (zaman), and place (makan).7 Adoption in pre-Islamic Arabia During the pre-Islamic period in Arabia, adoption (al-tabanni) into a tribe often took place for socioeconomic and patriarchal reasons. Al-tabanni is derived from the Arabic word ibn, meaning â€Å"son.† In keeping with the patriarchal norms of the era, adoptees were usually, if not always, male.11 People adopted mainly to secure an heir and/or additional warriors for the tribe. Adoption could take place at any time in a persons life, from childhood to adulthood, even if the adoptee’s biological parents were alive.12 The adoptee automatically earned full rights and the responsibilities of a biological child and was given the adoptive father’s name. Since male children were considered a source of wealth and prestige, this benefited the adoptive father.13 Often adoption was undertaken in self-interest with the intention of usurping an orphan’s property, as the adoptive parents would end up managing an orphaned child’s property. In addition, adoption was closely linked to enslavement; captors held the power to strip captives of their birth identities and appropriate them into their families.14 For these reasons, pre-Islamic adoption entailed a complete â€Å"erasure of natal identity.

The Theme of Responsibility in An Inspector Calls Essay -- An Inspecto

The Theme of Responsibility in An Inspector Calls John Boyton Priestly (1894-1984) wrote ‘An inspector calls' in 1945 and it was first performed in 1946. The play was set in 1912. Priestly wrote this play to send out a message of responsibility to the people. Priestly believed that even in 1945 they were still the same as they were in 1912, which is why Priestly choose to set the play in 1912, along with various other reasons, such as he wanted the audience to have the benefit of dramatic irony. During the Second World War, the people had united to fight one common enemy. This unity was that he wanted us to understand and believe in. He wanted to give everyone a choice. Should we go back to the way it was before the First World War, when everything was based on class, where an individual had to look solely after themselves, and no one else, or should we move forward, walk into the society where everyone looks for one another, where we all are equal and we work together? He wanted people to choose. He demonstrates the difference with the older generation representing the society where you care for yourself, and some of the younger generation that represents a new society where you care for one another. Priestly used dramatic irony to discredit Mr. Birling’s pronouncements in the opening scene. When Mr. Birling, head of the family and a respectable business man, talks of things that the audience knows is wrong, such as his opinion of the ‘unsinkable’ titanic, we begin to doubt Mr. Birling’s opinions, because we already know that the Titanic does in fact sink. At the time of which the play was set in, there were bitter divisions between the rich and the poor, industrial towns such as ‘Brumley’ were ... ... was to change, he knew the adults were stuck in their own reality and will never change so he puts his hope into the children. However, Priestly also knew that some of the children like the adults will not agree with his ideals, which is where Gerald comes in. Gerald is just like Mr. Birling as he does not think that he has done anything wrong. For these reason I dislike him. J. B. Priestly’s message (told via the inspector) tells us that we should have collective responsibility, and share our duties equally between us all. Do we really want to live in a world where those of higher class choose our fate, or do we want to choose our own fate? His message is still relevant today, as I think we still live in a society such as the one Priestly desires, we still need to learn his message, as we need to remember our responsibility for others and ourselves.

Face Recognition Technology To Augment Security Measures At The Sporting Event Essay

Facial recognition technology refers to a computer driven application that automatically identifies an individual from his or her digital image by a comparison of particular facial features in a facial database and in the live image (â€Å"Face Recognition,† 2007). The technology creates a template of people’s facial configurations, such as the lengths of their noses and the angles of their jaws. It thereby functions like the other biometric technologies (e. g. iris scanning) that use biological features for the purposes of recognition. According to Visionics, a manufacturer of face recognition technology, this technology is capable of finding human faces â€Å"anywhere in the field of view and at any distance, and it can continuously track them and crop them out of the scene, matching the face against a watch list† (Kautzer). While iris scanning and other kinds of biometric technologies are known to be far more accurate than the face recognition technology, it is believed that the latter would be more widely accepted because it is least intrusive. The technology also does not require users to push, click, or insert anything into the system. Moreover, companies using the face recognition technology do not require the installation of anything except the new software application. The cameras in place as well as the pictures of their employees on file are enough for companies that use the technology. Hence, face recognition technology is cheaper for organizations than the iris scanning, for instance, which requires reading setups. According to Frances Zelazney of Visionics, yet another advantage of facial recognition technology as compared to the other biometric technologies is that â€Å"[unlike] other biometrics, facial recognition provides for inherent human backup because we naturally recognize one another†¦ If the system goes down, someone can pull out an ID with a picture as backup, something you can’t do with fingerprint devices (Rutherford, 2001). † Unsurprisingly, facial recognition technology is known as the fastest growing biometric technology in our day. Law enforcement agencies and the military have been using the technology successfully for many years without the public being aware of it. In the year 1988, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (Lakewood Division) began using composite sketches of suspects, as well as video images, in order to conduct searches on a database of digital facial shots. The department also has a photo database of sex offenders, and plans to find suspects on this database. Then there is the Gang Reporting Evaluation Tracking system that can be searched with the use of photos of suspects in order for law enforcement to circumvent false identification cards as well as information that has been presented by gang members (Jarvis). There are numerous United States embassies around the world that are already using the face recognition technology to keep criminals from entering the country. The Israel-Palestine border control is similarly equipped with the technology to reduce crime across the border (Jarvis). IQ Biometrix, established in 2001, is a company providing help to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world with the FACESTM, which is a groundbreaking software tool allowing for the â€Å"creation and recreation of billions of facial images, as well as their encoding, cataloging and transmitting. † The technology incorporates a facial composite tool that the FBI and the CIA also use. The United States Department of Defense, the U. S. Navy, and various local as well as state police agencies have similarly opted for this groundbreaking system of facial recognition (IQ Biometrix, 2004). Given the importance of putting a name to a face, whether it is to solve crimes, protect the public, or to ensure security in jails, face recognition technology is proving itself to be of tremendous value. Sheriff Everett Rice along with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida employs the Viisage face recognition technology to â€Å"positively identify and verify individuals. † Some of these individuals have just been recently arrested, while others are about to released. The face recognition technology is also of use with people that visit the courthouse. So far, the application of the technology has been successful, and users of the technology believe that it would have a greater impact on crime control in the years to come (â€Å"Facial Recognition,† 2007). The United States Department of Defense, with its focus on perfecting the face recognition technology to spot criminals at the borders of the nation, had been funding scientists’ research on the technology for more than decade. Private companies were similarly convinced that the face recognition technology could help dramatically in combating crime within the borders of the United States. Because of their belief, the marketing of the technology became widespread during the mid-1990s (Rutherford). Then came 9/11 – the day that changed the security concerns of the entire world in the matter of only a few hours. There was increased interest in face recognition technology following the terrorist attacks on the American soil. Although the Americans had viewed the face recognition technology with skepticism before the attacks, they became confident that widespread use of the new technology in security as well as public safety would help protect them from similar attacks in future. Indeed, the face recognition technology could play an important role in the prevention of tragedies. All the same, law enforcement agencies have discovered that in the areas covered by the new technology, no terrorist has ever been identified. What is more, despite the redoubling of efforts to create dependable face recognition systems after 9/11, the technology suffers from problems. The facial recognition technology faces a difficulty, for example, in the recognition of the effects of aging. Digitally compared photos of individuals that had been taken eighteen months apart produced untrue rejections by the software application at least forty three percent of the time. Furthermore, it has been found that the technology is more successful when used by casinos to identify cheaters; in welfare offices; and by driver’s license bureaus, given the uniformity of lighting and the use of the same cameras in these places (Jarvis; O’Harrow, 2001). Seeing that the face recognition technology is not fool proof, albeit useful – and security experts have confirmed this – it is best to use it at the sporting event only to augment security measures. The new technology can help security personnel at the sporting event to spot terrorists, for instance. However, face recognition technology should not be considered a replacement for traditional security measures by any means. What is more, this technology is easy to use, and security personnel would not have a difficult time installing and working through the system. Hence, the use of face recognition technology at the sporting event is definitely recommended as a boost to the traditional security measures. References Face Recognition System. (2007). Wikipedia. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system. Facial Recognition in Action. (2007). Penton Media. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://govtsecurity. com/current/. Jarvis, A. Are Privacy Rights of Citizens Being Eroded Wholesale? Forensic Evidence. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://forensic-evidence. com/site/ID/facialrecog. html. Kautzer, C. Face Recognition Technology. ZMAG. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://www. zmag. org/ZMag/articles/march02kautzer. htm. O’Harrow, R. (2001, August 1). Matching Faces With Mug Shots. Washington Post, p. A01. Rutherford, Emelie. (2001, July 17). Facial Recognition Tech Has People Pegged. CNN. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://www. cnn. com/2001/TECH/ptech/07/17/face. time. idg.

Persuasive Essay About Long Summer Vacations - 729 Words

It’s summer vacation and students are excited to have a long break with their friends. However,this is the time of the year where they forget everything they learned all school year because they sleep and wake up late and in between they do not keep their brains active. Instead of reading a book three times a week or practicing math, some work with their parents or on their own, while others stay home being lazy. The long summer vacations for students in Anaheim are ineffective. In order to increase students success in Anaheim Schools, students must have less longer vacations and instead have a round school year to keep their brains active by remembering the analytical subjects as well as others. *In the collections book Maritas Bargain,†¦show more content†¦Leaving behind a set mindset will increase student success. *In the article Secret to Raising Smart Kids, the author Dweck researches the different views students have on Intelligence. Some believe they were engen dered smart and if they make a mistake they are considered unintelligent, â€Å"A belief in fixed intelligence also make people less willing to admit to their errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, work and social relationships† (24). This is the biggest mistake a parent or a mentor can instil in a student because it will affect them in the future. If the student believes he/she is smart, they only focus on getting good grades, but when they encounter a challenge they back away because they do not know how to confront it. Since they have never been exposed to difficulty, students become vulnerable and are afraid they will fail, so they do not give it a chance nor do they put in effort. Moreover, it’s crucial that we help them correct this mindset so they learn how to accept challenges and correct their mistakes. This would prevent them from presenting fallacious work at their job, school, or in their social lives.*Moreover, â€Å"Over emphasis in intellects/ talents lead to failure† (21). The only problem with reminding our students of their talent, is that it gets too repetitive to the point where the student losesShow MoreRelatedAccounting: Recordation of Assets and Liabilities of All Continental Countries2557 Words   |  11 Pages | | | | |Quarter |Summer 2011 | |Meeting Days/Time |Online Read MoreThe Work Study Job Of Transcribe Oral History Tapes From Richland Center, Wisconsin5921 Words   |  24 Pageslistened to the cassettes and wrote down what I heard on paper, typing it up afterwards. Then to save time, I started listening to the tapes and typing what I heard. Transcribing is hard work. The tapes were typically an hour each. Transcribing an hour long tape can take many hours, many times the actual length of the tape. 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