CAIRO, March 1, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – With more than 150 babies born to imprisoned mothers, Egyptians journalists, scholars and rights activists have urged officials to have mercy on those innocent lives and make necessary legal amendments to spare them a deep psychological scar.

“Under the new amendments, we call for delaying the imprisonment of pregnant women till they give birth and wean their babies; namely when they are two years of age,” journalist Nawal Mustafa, the chairwoman of the Committee of Female Prisoners’ Babies, told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, March 1.

Mustafa said that she was moved when she found a ward in the Qanater prison designed for female prisoners who had just delivered their babies.

“Being a mother, I was very much touched with what I had seen in this ward. The babies' innocence is being killed. No budgets have been allocated to buy food, clothes and medicines for them, ridiculously because they are not enlisted in the official records,” she said.

Every year, more than 150 children are born in prisons. Those children are more likely to be juvenile offenders.

Mostafa urged Egyptian lawmakers to spearhead the amendment call and take all necessary measures to make sure that the women offenders would not try to escape or evade prison sentences.

Under Egyptian law, jail terms for female prisoners can be put off if they are six-month-pregnant and till her baby is only two months of age.

If she was imprisoned before reaching the six month, she shall be given a special treatment in terms of work and sleep starting from the six month and until forty days after the delivery.

The mother prisoner is entitled further to keep the child in her custody till s/he is two years of age.

If she is not willing to do so, the child can be cared for by the father, a relative she chooses or by an orphanage.

“Those babies will be stigmatized throughout their lives for a guilt they did not commit,” said Othman.

The proposed legislative amendment was welcomed by Muslim scholars, who stressed that the move goes in line with the Shari`ah (Muslim law).

Mohammad Raafat Othman, member of Al-Azhar Islamic Research Academy and the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), said it is illegal, under Islam, to keep newborn babies behind bars.

“A pregnant female adulterer asked Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to stone her for her sin, but he asked her to go back till she gives birth and weans her child,” Othman narrated the famous story.

The Muslim scholar also called for official birth certificates for those babies and not prison-sealed ones.

“Otherwise,” he added. “they will be stigmatized throughout their lives for a guilt they did not commit.”

Mahmmoud Mansy, the head of the educational psychology department in Alexandria University, said that the first two years are a very critical period for babies.

“During this period, their psychological attitudes are formed,” he told IO.

“What can you expect from a child or a baby born in prison? Surely, s/he would pick up destructive habits and be deprived of much-needed tenderness.”

Sociologists and psychiatrists stress that babies or children who are brought up in prisons usually lag behind their peers in many aspects and manners like timely speaking.

Human rights activists reserved some tough language for lawmakers for enacting such “merciless” laws, stressing that keeping babies and children behind bars is violating basic human rights.

“Babies born or children raised in prison are a time bomb as they pose serious threats to Egyptian society,” Hafez Abu Saeda, the chairman of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told IOL.