Social System

The Children in the West who are Robbed of their Lives

A social worker told me recently at her joy of a very happy and loving child who was disabled, being adopted. When I asked about why he had been in care in the first place, she related how his mother had abandoned him at the hospital after giving birth to him. Although I could understand the joy of the momentous occasion of his adoption, I felt deep sadness that the boy was abandoned in the first place and it made me think of the scores of children in the UK, who go through similar experiences.

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) received 8,403 new applications between April 2011 – April 2012 of children whose families were having court proceedings about whether they could continue to keep them in their care or not. In April last year, it was predicted that by April 2013 this number could rise up to 10,000. Although figures have yet to be released to prove how true this has been, we know the continuous flow of children into the care system has not stopped and does not stop.

And as always, secular liberal societies focus on how to try to deal with the flow once it has started. So there is no shortage of advertising campaigns to try to get more foster carers to take these children into their homes and look after them for a wage; initiatives to try to improve the social services departments to make sure that children in neglectful homes are supported and monitored before they are taken away as the last resort. But never is the question asked as to why so many children are abused, neglected and failed by their families in the first place?

Of course this issue is by no means a simple one. There will be times where parents or single parents, cannot manage their children for whatever reason due to a change in life. However for most cases we see that firstly many children are the result of promiscuous or non-committing relationships and are therefore unwanted, or secondly the parents themselves do not view the role of a parent as a responsibility they must fulfil.

And at the heart of both these attitudes, is liberal values arising from secular society which pushes people to let their desires rule their actions. So if parenting is not always fun, requires sacrifice and consistently putting others before yourself, then it becomes something people want to disband and not do anymore. Liberal values have also pushed sexual freedom as a positive thing, detaching completely that with the sexual instinct comes the ability to have children. So when an unwanted pregnancy happens, the solution is to put the child into care not to stop the promiscuity in the first place.

Islam nurtures a mentality of accountability for every responsibility in life, to Allah; and parenting is a key one. The Islamic Khilafah system puts family life at its heart and disallows anything through its values, rules and laws from harming it or devaluing it.

Liberalism has robbed too many children of the protection, love and security that they deserve from their parents. It is over and beyond time, the world now looks to Islam.

Umm Abdullah Khan

Women’s Media Representative Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain