Umm Salem and her husband decided to adopt a child after 10 years of marriage because of her husband’s categorical refusal to marry another woman to have a child. After the parents’ approval, she submitted her papers to the Department of Social Services in Sharjah, and he commented by saying, “I was lucky, because I did not wait long, but rather was called to attend.” When I laid eyes on one of the children, I was overcome with great emotion and went up to him to be surprised when he said to me, “Mama.” That day, I did not return home without Salem with me. Today, he is ten years old and knows his reality after I prepared for him year after year. What is strange is that he asks me to embrace another child so that he can have a brother. Her daughter wants a sister. As for Jawaher, she embraced a 4-month-old baby girl in 2011, and behind her desire to embrace was her only daughter, 9 years old, who was insisting on her request to have a sister, to the point that she became psychologically tired of this issue, and after Jawaher’s attempts Repeatedly pregnant, she and her husband decided to embrace a baby girl, and the parents from both sides agreed with them. “Therefore, we did not face any problems or disapproval regarding embracing from Emirati society. On the contrary, it was a normal issue.” I followed Jawaher. Source of livelihood. As for Fatima, she has a different story with embracement. “I obtained livelihood after embracing a child,” says Fatima, who God did not grant her the blessing of childbirth. So, after nine years of marriage, she decided to embrace a child to feel the feeling of motherhood that she was deprived of, and she embraced an infant. It was a surprise that none of her family expected... After a month of incubation, Fatima became pregnant with twin girls, one of whom died. After that, she became pregnant twice in a row. These births did not prompt her or her husband to return the adopted child to the home. On the contrary, they considered him a usher in livelihood. When he came to the home, he brought goodness with him, and the family was filled with great joy. Fatima narrates her story with adoption. In the beginning, we faced some problems from some people who rejected the principle of embracement, despite the fact that they were Muslims, and our Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, urged us to embrace based on the noble Prophet’s hadith: “I and the one who takes care of an orphan will be like these in Paradise,” and he pointed with his two fingers. It means: the index and middle fingers,” but societal cultures change from one person to another, but we were determined to embrace. At the gate of the house. As for our third story, it has a different path. It is the smell of that baby girl whose mother left her early one morning at the gate of a house 16 years ago. Aisha, the housewife, finds her and embraces her after completing the necessary procedures. Unlike the previous two stories, Aisha has two children, a boy and a girl. Things are fine. Aisha’s daughter, the nanny, recently breastfed the child to become one of them, and she follows Aisha. I consider this child to be a trust in my neck, sent by God Almighty to the doorstep of my house so that I can take care of her and raise her. She is my way to heaven, and I will continue to take care of her until she gets married. These stories and others are realistic and carry many lessons about humanity, giving, and sacrifice. Some people refuse to embrace, while others accept it, especially since Islam permits it. Sharjah is the first emirate to implement a program to embrace families for children of unknown parentage at the state level, since the 1980s. It handed over the reins to the Department of Social Services to follow up on requests and care for children of unknown parentage, represented by the management of the Minors’ Services Center, and to it was allocated a Family Integration Division for children without social care. For the two categories of unknown parentage and unknown mother. It is also concerned with accepting and rejecting requests, which base their acceptance on the fostering law established by the Ministry of Community Development regarding the care of children of unknown parentage. The Integration Division works to follow up on foster children until they reach advanced age, for a young man until he becomes an employee and for a girl until she gets married, in addition to disbursing a monthly sum to all foster children and ensuring that they are visited periodically to ascertain their various conditions.
