Children abandoned as Morocco deports adoptive parents

NRC International, by Gert van Langendonck in Rabat, 16 March 2010 09:30

The Boonstra's and their adopted children. Photo Village of Hope website

Last week, Morocco deported a large number of Christians on suspicion of proselytizing.

Their only crime, Herman Boonstra said, was letting children read from a children’s Bible. “Stories of Noah and the Ark and Jonas and the whale. Stories which appear in the Koran as well.”

Last week, Boonstra and 15 other people working at the Village of Hope orphanage in Ain Leuh, a town in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, were booted out of the country for suspected proselytizing. Elsewhere in Morocco, Christians were also deported, including a “significant” number of Americans, the US embassy reported.

Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch acting minister of foreign affairs, immediately summoned the Moroccan ambassador to protest the deportation of Boonstra and six other Dutch people. Confessional parties have asked questions about the matter in the Dutch parliament.

33 children, abandoned anew

On Friday evening, Boonstra and the other adoptive parents from the Village of Hope appealed to the Moroccan king to “to act with mercy and help us reach a point of compromise and reunite the 33 children with the only parents they know,” Village of Hope’s website said.

For Herman and Jellie Boonstra their deportation is a personal drama. They had come to see the eight children they had taken in as their own. The Village of Hope was not an everyday orphanage. Here, children were adopted into real families. The Village was home to 33 children in all, mostly abandoned by women who had become pregnant out of wedlock. “They were our children. Now suddenly they aren’t anymore,” an emotional Boonstra said, speaking on the phone from Spain.

The proposition was risky to begin with: adoption is illegal in Muslim countries. Something resembling it is allowed, a practice called kafala in Arabic, but Christians are not eligible.

On the other hand, Village of Hope had just been officially recognised as a children’s care facility early this year, which made the deportation an even bigger surprise, Boonstra said. “We have always tried to be clear. They knew exactly who we were and have not interfered with us one bit for ten years. Now, suddenly they are treating us like criminals and having us carried off under police escort.”

Practice, don't preach

Responding to the criticism, the Moroccan minister of communication Khalid Naciri announced that Morocco would “continue to take stern action against everyone belittling religious values.” According to Naciri, Christians are free to practice their religion in Morocco, but proselytizing will not be tolerated.

The minister of justice had earlier stated that the deported foreigners had exploited the poverty of a number of Moroccan families to convert minors to Christianity. In a joint statement, the Catholic and evangelical churches of Morocco distanced themselves from the deported Christians. Converting people in a relatively weak position is a “deplorable practice,” according to the churches.

Jack Wald III, an American reverend with the protestant Rabat International Church, said the deportations were indicative of a policy shift in the government. Deportations of Christians are nothing new in Morocco, “But we considered the deportations in 2009 as anomalies.” said Wald, who was chairman of the Village of Hope’s board until 2008. “This is different; this seems to be a coordinated effort”

Morocco has taken stern measures against Shia Muslims in the past, as it has against Salafi and other strains of Muslim faith at odds with the official Moroccan variety of Islam: Sunni Malikism.

The Moroccan constitution guarantees religious freedom, but Islam is the official state religion and converting people to another one is punishable under the law.

“The way it was done has been traumatising for the children: they have been abandoned a second time,” said Wald. “It was a shameful act on the part of the Moroccan authorities. What they're saying is that the perceived threat from Christianity trumps the welfare of these children."

Boonstra said he never intended to convert the children in his care. “Of course they are more familiar with Christianity since they grew up with us, but they got Koran lessons all the same. We have always tried to make everything as Moroccan as possible. We have never held a grudge against Muslims and still don’t. We have tried to uphold the Dutch standard of care in Morocco, to show that things don’t have to be the way they are in the official Moroccan orphanages, where children have to share their beds with two others.”

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