OrphanCARE: Work on ensuring safety of mum and child
PETALING JAYA: Instead of a life for a life, the authorities should work on ensuring that both parent and child can be saved.
This was the stand of OrphanCARE, the organisation running the country’s first baby hatch for mothers to anonymously leave their unwanted newborns to be put up for adoption.
“If mistakes are made, resulting in babies being born out of wedlock, facilities like the Baby Hatch nationwide would enable more babies to be saved, as they offer safety for the parent and the baby,” its president Datuk Mohd Adnan Tahir said.
“The hatch is not there to encourage pre-marital sex, it is about saving an innocent baby’s life,” he explained.
On Thursday, the Cabinet agreed to the proposal made by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to impose the death sentence on those who dumped their babies resulting in death.
Woman’s Aid Organisation (WAO), Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) and various other parties have come out against the capital punishment.
Mohd Adnan said that no mother would intentionally abandon her own baby and that the women involved were usually young and unmarried.
“These girls could be anyone’s daughters. They dump their babies for fear of being disowned by their families,” he said.
Since the launch of the hatch on May 29, six babies have been adopted.
Four other babies and nine older children from an orphanage were also successfully put up for adoption by OrphanCARE.
For more information, visit www.orphancare.org or call 03-78761900.
— Category under English News. There's No Comments.
