The fight over nobody's children: Religion, nationality and citizenship of foundlings in the late Ottoman Empire

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the religion, nationality, and citizenship of abandoned children became a contested terrain over which much effort was spent by local authorities, foreign missionaries, religious and civil leaders of the communities, municipalities, the police force, and the central state. Relying on Ottoman and French archival sources, together with periodicals and contemporary literature, this paper discerns the elevated political significance of abandoned children within such realms as demographic politics, politics of conversion, and national identities. The state's new preoccupation of properly registering new-born infants, in line with the new Regulation on Population Registration created controversy over the nationality and citizenship of abandoned children. As new administrative reforms challenged the customary jurisdiction and the autonomy of the communal authorities and as the power of the governmental bureaus, police departments, the municipality, and the foundling unit of the Dârü'l-aceze increased, non-Muslim leadership resisted these practices: they both submitted official appeals to the government and opened or strengthened their own foundling facilities. Furthermore, the child gathering efforts of Catholic missionaries created an atmosphere of self-defense on the part of the communities, as they felt threatened with losing prospective members of their newly conceived and idealized imagined communities. In this context, abandoned children attracted interest hardly due to pity, or disinterested charity. Institutional solutions, policies, and strategies of diverse and competing actors were closely related to the emergence of a modernized governmental structure and attempts to strengthen communities as its mirror image.

‘Legal Identity for All’ and Statelessness: Opportunity and Threat at the Junction of Public and Private International Law

“…The efforts of governments to establish or reform registration systems have therefore also created consternation among populations cleaving to different conceptions of the family, marriage and the rights of children; 42 these clashes have often been visible in the efforts of colonial officials to register 'native' populations. 43 Anxieties about attribution of status to abandoned children have been perennial; 44 as have those on the recognition of the fathers of children born out of wedlock. 45 The more recent development of civil registration frameworks reflects the profound influence of human rights law and norms of non-discrimination on concepts of the family.…”

A Climate for Abduction, a Climate for Redemption: The Politics of Inclusion during and after the Armenian Genocide

“…63 Turks accused Armenians of being baby snatchers "who hoped to replenish their wartime losses from the Muslim pool." 67 While the central state and the municipality wanted to assume all foundlings' Muslimness, non-Muslim leaders argued that at least those who were left in front of churches and synagogues should be taken in by the respective communities. 65 Armenian editors responded by accusing the Turkish press of maintaining the genocidal mentality by blaming victims for the perpetrators' crimes.…”