By Pauline Odhiambo
At 15, when most girls her age would probably paint filigree dreams and see the future through rose-tinted glasses, Yasmina El Habbal knew she would adopt a child someday.
Her conviction was born of a trip to an orphanage, where she promptly fell in love with the little children for whom she and her schoolfriends had carried a lot of toys and clothes during a charity visit.
"From the moment I set foot in that orphanage, I knew I wanted to adopt a child. I felt so strongly about it, and so the 'when' or the 'how' of it didn't even matter," she says of the epiphany.
Yasmina also hoped to get married and give birth to a daughter – even picking a name for her, "Ghalia", meaning "precious" in Arabic.
Although she never got around to finding the type of companion she wanted, Yasmina would still be allowed her Ghalia. Mom and daughter met, not exactly as Yasmina's teenage mind had ordained, but in an Egyptian orphanage 25 years later.
Baby Ghalia, blessed with captivating big, brown eyes, promptly fell asleep when Yasmina held her.
"She had been crying when they first brought her, but she just stopped the second they gave her to me. I thought to myself, ‘Yes! She knows I am her mama," Yasmina recounts to TRT Afrika. "Every time I remember that moment, I feel grateful. God has been good to me."
This is the point where Yasmina and Ghalia's story gets complicated.
Adoption challenges
Adoption in the strict sense of the word, which bestows on children all the legal rights of biological offspring, is not encouraged in Islam as the emphasis is more on preserving lineage.
Instead, there is kafala, an alternative care system where adults can become guardians of orphaned children – caring for their physical, financial and spiritual needs.
Yasmina, a Muslim, remembers volunteering for years at the orphanage she first visited in high school – gradually becoming a consistent figure in the children's lives.
"I found it unsettling that hired 'mothers' or nannies would live with groups of children at the orphanage as their guardians for up to three months before being replaced by other mothers," she says. "I felt sorry for the kids because I know how valuable a stable maternal figure is to a child."
Foster mother
Soon after turning 21, Yasmina landed her first job and began sponsoring a pair of baby girls at the orphanage. She established a lasting bond with the duo by visiting them often and providing for them as best as possible.
"I have sponsored them since they were ten months old," the now 43-year-old says. "I was actually there the first day they were brought to the orphanage, and they both have now graduated from university. One of them already has a job that she really loves."
Yasmina, who currently works with the UN World Food Programme in Cairo for a school feeding project, says she has taken up multiple jobs since her 20s, but the ones she has loved the most have always involved kids.
By the time she was 40, Yasmina was still unmarried – a status that made her ineligible to adopt a child.
"The law initially only allowed adoption if you were a married couple above a certain age and staying together for several years without any biological kids or the ability to have one," she explains.
"Slowly, things started to change. Married couples above 21 were eventually allowed to adopt even if they already had biological kids.”
New laws
Adoption in Egypt is shrouded in stigma as many children who are looking for families happen to be abandoned, including those born out of wedlock. Yasmina battled these societal hurdles even within her family.
“When I eventually told my father about my desire to adopt, he immediately said no,’’ she says.
Finally, in June 2020, when the authorities allowed single women over 30 to adopt, the change in law breathed new energy into Yasmina's long-held desire to adopt.
The Egyptian government hopes that increasing the pool of prospective foster parents could make the practice more widespread and socially accepted.
But Yasmina's joy at finally holding a baby in her arms was short-lived as the Covid-19 pandemic brought everything to a grinding halt.
"Everything shut down, including the adoption offices. There was nothing I could do,” says Yasmina, who had only told her sister and best friend about her adoption plans.
"Eventually, the pandemic worked in my favour because social distancing simplified the online process. After the re-announcement, I only had to click on a link and fill in the details," explains Yasmina, who also had to submit proof of income and blood test results, among other requirements. "Once that was done, it took about three weeks for my application to be approved."
But Yasmina had to defend her case before the 17-member committee that grilled her on her suitability as a parent.
“I was repeatedly asked, ‘Why do you want to adopt? You are a single woman; why do you want the responsibility? You could get married at any time. What will you do then? Return the child to us?" Yasmina says of the interview.
"I realised afterwards that their questions were all valid because there have been cases where people adopt children, only to abandon them all over again."
The Homecoming
A week after the application was approved, Yasmina met three-week-old Ghalia in an orphanage in Suez, a two-hour drive from Cairo.
"A friend who had been adopted from the same orphanage sent me a photo of her, and her eyes immediately drew me in," says Yasmina of the first meeting. She was finally able to bring baby Ghalia home two months later.
"Ghalia is now three and will soon join kindergarten. Everyone loves her, including my father," Yasmina says.
Her advice to anyone wanting to adopt is simple: based as much on practicality as emotion.
"Adoption is not easy, and neither is raising a child. But I am really enjoying motherhood. Sometimes, it feels like Ghalia is raising me and not vice versa. That's because she makes me want to be a better person."
