Khanda House

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http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/3713.html

ERBIL, Kurdistan -- Khanda House has become the gateway to a better life for many orphans in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A shelter for children who have lost their parents or been abandoned by them, Khanda is a place where some married couples go to adopt children. They are, almost without exception couples, who cannot have their own children.
“Those families raise the kids in such a wonderful way and take care of them so well, as if the children were a gift from heaven for them,” said Kajal Abduljabbar, director of Khanda House.
Khanda which means smile in Kurdish was established as a house thirty-four years ago in the Kurdish capital, Erbil. It takes in abandoned children and those whose parents have died or cannot care for them.
The organization usually accepts children over the age of four, but it sometimes takes in younger children, too. Many of the children at Khanda were born as the result of extra-marital relationships. Such children are often sent by the police and courts to childcare organizations like Khanda.
Abduljabbar said that during her eleven years with Khanda, around eighty-two families have put in requests for adoptions, but the organization only allows children born to unmarried couples to be adopted.
“Some of the children we raised here are now at university. Some have even gotten married and now have children,” said Abduljabbar.
Over the past eight years, Khanda has allowed fifteen of its children, twelve boys and three girls, to be taken for adoption.
When a parentless child is found, the court sets up an investigative committee. If the parents are not found, the child is then eligible for adoption.
Cnl. Abdulkhaliq Talat, Erbil’s police chief, said that many babies get abandoned in Erbil.
“But nobody has been arrested so far because we don’t know who their parents are, and cannot tell if the child was born as a result of an extra-marital relationship or not,” said Talat.
The last baby to be brought to Khanda was an eight-day-old girl. Her parents had divorced. The court later gave the girl to another couple for adoption. The couple who adopted the baby had been married for ten years but could not have a child.
“The couple was so thrilled and shocked,” said Abduljabbar of Khanda. “They couldn’t believe their luck.”
Children at Khanda see Abduljabbar as a mother, and she calls them “my children”.
Abduljabbar said that religious beliefs play a major role in motivating people in Erbil to adopt these children.
She said couples who are interested in adopting a child should have been married for at least seven years and be able to provide a medical report confirming that they cannot have their own children.
They also must have Iraqi citizenship, have no criminal record, be Muslims, and have the financial means of raising a child.
After taking the child, the authorities will follow up with the family to know how they raise and treat their new child.