Ahram Online, by Moushira Khattab
(Excerpt: Shanouda's rights as a child)
It is important to underscore how the constitutional provisions are framed in a way that gives priority to the role of the family in the life of any child. In accordance with this legal framework, which is consistent with the highest international criteria for human rights, the Egyptian government must ensure the rights of the child and, above all, the child's right to live in the embrace of a loving and caring family who will do their utmost to protect and raise their children, and enable them to reach their fullest potential.
This, I stress again, is the governing legal framework in which we must consider the case of the young Shanouda. The Egyptian state has committed itself to the principle that Egyptian children are endowed with inalienable rights that must be met, and it is legally bound to guarantee this, meaning that the state's executive, legislative and judicial institutions, and all other governmental and non-governmental organisations under the state's legal jurisdiction, must secure the rights of all citizens living on Egyptian territory. When Egypt voluntarily assumed this commitment, it set an example for many other countries.
In this context, it is important to draw attention to a matter of immediate relevance to the case in hand. Numerous academic studies and extensive field research carried out in many different countries by experts on the rights of the child have shown that placing children in foster care institutions is a practice that would be best abandoned because of the mark that the experience leaves on children for the rest of their lives, a mark that can be even more deleterious as the result of harmful practices that occur in some of those institutions due to poorly trained or otherwise unqualified supervisors and staff.
Accordingly, the new trend is to try to ensure the child's right to a home in a caring family environment. In the absence of biological parents, the child should be placed with a foster family. To my great delight, I learned that the Egyptian government has kept pace with this trend, preferring to place orphans with foster families instead of institutions. I hope this spirit prevails in the case of Shanouda and that he can celebrate this holy season back home in the embrace of the family who have loved and cared for him all these years.
Read the whole article here.
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