CAIRO: For the children involved, winning a case proving parenthood means the difference between having a birth certificate or going without one. Without a man’s name to fill the blank space under “father on a child’s birth certificate, the certificate cannot be issued.
Thus the 14,000 parenthood proving cases waiting for the court’s decision aren’t just a way to formalize an intimate relationship (usually unrecognized by law and frowned upon by society), but rather a necessary procedure to legalize the existence of a baby.
This, according to opponents of a new draft law that would make DNA testing a mandatory procedure in lawsuits, is what has rallied public opinion in favor of their efforts and enlisted the help of many NGOs.
Without a birth certificate, notes Lamiaa Lotfy, the child doesn’t exist when it comes to legal or governmental matters. Practically, this means the child is not eligible for free vaccination or for acceptance in public nurseries and schools, Lotfy explains. It also means that if the child is kidnapped, murdered or gets lost, the mother can’t report it to the police, as the child doesn’t legally exist.
“Everything here works with [legal] papers, adds Lotfy, who works with the New Woman Foundation and is on an eight-month-long intensive campaign to change the legislation governing parenthood proving cases. Without legal papers, or a birth certificate when it comes to children, the government doesn’t recognize the existence of a person.
Lotfy recalls the case of a rape victim who lost her lawsuit and the appeal she filed to prove the man’s fatherhood of her baby; the DNA test was not used as evidence.
Until the child turned seven, he was not recognized by law and was not admitted to a public school; the mother couldn’t afford the private ones. At this point, an NGO managed to issue a certificate with a random name so the child could go to school.
While this is the only parenthood case involving rape that Lotfy has had to deal with, Nahed Abu El Qumsan, president of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights’, says she has worked with many rape victims in this regard.
Other parenthood cases involve premarital sexual relationships or unregistered (orfi) marriages. The latter type includes underage marriages and what is described as “deal marriages, whereby families in rural areas marry their daughters to wealthy foreigners for a few months in exchange for a sum of money.
This type of unregistered marriage is condemned by the society as the parties involved are seen as opportunistic; the greedy woman or her greedy parents and the wealthy, usually older, man who doesn’t want to destroy his public image by documenting an affair.
This type also includes, Abu El Qumsan explains, the college students who can’t afford the financial costs of a legal marriage and think orfi marriage is a permissible alternative or a preliminary step toward a registered one.
Widows who don’t want to lose their late husbands’ pensions by registering a marriage and divorcees worried about losing the custody of their children often opt for orfi marriage as well, Abu El Qumsan adds.
Lotfy stresses, however, that the widespread belief that most of the parenthood cases are a result of orfi marriages or promiscuous relationships is false.
Critics of the new DNA draft law often use this belief as justification for their stance. In terms of religious and social concerns, opponents think that by passing this law women would be more prone to accept the “sin of adultery or a questionable orfi marriage.
“About 40 percent of the court [parenthood] cases are of registered marriages, stresses Lotfy, who is still analyzing the circumstances leading up to the lawsuits.
She says in these cases a man and a woman argue before their baby is born and the man refuses to register the child under his name. Since the woman doesn’t have the right to get a birth certificate issued on her own, she has to file a lawsuit to be able to legally use the man’s name.
“Whoever says this hasn’t studied people’s needs, notes Abu El Qumsan.
The campaign, which has featured the participation of several NGOs, including the Bashayer Foundation, The Egyptian Child Center and the Center of Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, has rallied for more than the inclusion of mandatory DNA tests.
Although only DNA testing has been included in the new draft law that is currently pending the approval of the Ministry of Justice, there have been other requests that the campaigners are waiting to legalize.
Campaigners want to legislate that a court case shouldn’t take more than six months and, while the case is pending, the child should have a temporary birth certificate issued in his mother’s name. Campaigners have also called for the government to pay for the expenses of the DNA testing.
This goal grows out of the poor financial circumstances that usually characterize the women involved in parenthood cases. To these women a birth certificate is crucial to their children’s physical existence. For example, vaccination in private hospitals costs up to LE 60, explains Lotfy, and free government-sponsored vaccination is limited to babies with birth certificates.
The dire conditions that usually surround the parties involved in the parenthood cases are what made Hind El Hinnawy’s and Ahmed El Fishawy’s case the center of public debate. This case is thought to be the catalyst for pushing through the DNA draft law.
In 2004, El Hinnawy publicly announced her orfi marriage to a young actor, who in turn denied the marriage but confessed to an intimate relationship that had once brought the two together. When El Fishawy refused to take the DNA test that El Hinnawy requested, the fact that DNA tests are not mandatory became public knowledge and topic for much debate.
El Hinnawy broke the stereotype of the woman who usually resorts to orfi marriage concerning social and financial status, Abu El Qumsan explains, and El Fishawy had promoted himself as a religious person who wouldn’t opt for adultery or orfi marriage.
The circumstances that surrounded the union of the two weren’t the only unique feature of the case. El Hinnawy’s relatively stable financial status contradicted with the impoverished women whose cases are characterized by an immediate need to issue a birth certificate.
It was primarily, however, the fact that El Hinnawy didn’t shy away from talking about her case and discussing a “taboo topic that caught the public’s attention even more. El Hinnawy stresses that the only unique feature of her case is that she was willing to talk.
By doing so, she acquired supporters and critics. El Fishawy has his share of detractors and supporters, as well. He, however, refused to comment when asked by it by The Daily Star Egypt.
“Dozens of cases have passed through the Egyptian society in newspapers and no one cared about them except specialists. What made the society stop at [this one] is that there is a mystery surrounding the girl and the boy [El Hinnawy and El Fishawy], explains Abu El Qumsan, “Honestly, both were shocking.
“But the society sympathized with the baby. In my opinion, the Egyptian society is still not sympathizing with the girl or the boy. If it was only about Hind and [Ahmed], it wouldn’t have taken this turn. At the end the Egyptian society sympathized with the baby who didn’t do anything wrong . This baby has dignity, humanity and has rights.
