Kafalah is usually defined as “the commitment to voluntarily take care of the maintenance, of the education and of the protection of a minor, in the same way as a father would do it for his son” (art. 116 Family Code of Algeria). Kafalah creates the following effects: exercise of the parental authority and the obligation of maintenance of the caregiver on the one hand, and persistence of the family bonds and preservation of the child’s family status on the other. Kafalah is a form of permanency for children in the Islamic world. It is similar, but not necessarily equivalent to, adoption.
Even though the institution of kafalah is of growing interest to many receiving countries, its meaning, its origin and the variety of its practices within the Muslim world remain quite unknown for most Western professionals. The information gathered by the ISS/IRC is summarised in this fact sheet in order to give the reader some general ideas about this specific child protection measure, as recognised by article 20 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
