Objectives

Objectives of Badael

Badael - Alternatives aims at providing alternatives to ensure the right to origins through:

•Prevention of separation unless it is in the best interest of the child/biological mother

•Designing new forms of alternative care

•Ensuring that separation processes and placement decision do maintain access to origins

•Providing technical and legal support for reconnecting with origins.

Goals of Badael

•Advocate for the right to origins

•Provide support to mothers at risk of separation from the child through protection and counseling services

•Give a voice to biological mothers in the decision process in the best interest of the child

•Reform policies and related executive measures so separation is governed by a civil entity

•Support persons in search for their origins

Values of Badael

Separation from the biological families is a worldwide phenomenon yielding to severe violation of child and human rights. Children are said to become invisibles as they lose contact with their origins.

For millions of children, the main cause of their invisibility is a violation of their right to protection resulting from the lack or loss of formal identification; inadequate State protection for children without parental care and the mishandling of the so called unable biologic mothers and the exploitation of children through trafficking.

48 million children is the estimated number of those who were not registered as per the State of the World Children Report 2006 while 55% of births are estimated to slip out of registration every year in the Arab World including Lebanon.

Making children visible requires establishing a protective environment; hence, every child should be entitled to:

•a formal identity,

•inclusion in birth registration,

•the right to acquire a nationality

•the right to know and be cared for by the biological parents

•the right to reconnect with the biological family whenever this is made possible