Driving change in Sudan: Georgette Mulheir and the race to save 10,000 Babies

In Northeast Africa, Sudan has a population of about 43 million, and in the capital city of Khartoum, Georgette Mulheir worked for several years establishing a network of foster families to address the issue of abandoned children in the city. Sudan was the largest country in Africa by land area until 2011. At that time, due to civil conflict and unrest, the country separated into Sudan and South Sudan. Ethnic, religious, and cultural differences between North and South Sudan also contributed to the country’s breakup. South Sudan is currently the world’s newest and youngest country.

The country also experienced its fair share of military rule over the past six decades. Sudan formally became a secular state in 2020, only now slowly emerging from 30 years of dictatorship under President Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir’s dictatorship had long been accused of sponsoring global terrorism and genocide.

Georgette Mulheir in Sudan

It is against this backdrop that Georgette Mulheir, a pioneer and expert on child care and protection, began her work in Sudan.  Between 2003 and 2007 – while the federal government was committing genocide in the region of Darfur – Mulheir developed a programme to address the issue of babies being left on the streets of Khartoum.

Extramarital sex is not allowed in Islam. Sudan had long followed Sharia law and single mothers with young children were often punished for breaking Islamic laws. These punishments included flogging and the separation of babies from their mothers. These are some of the reasons why, annually, more than a thousand babies were being left on the streets of Khartoum, with roughly half of them dying. The other half were sent to a local childcare institution where the mortality rate was over 80%.

Georgette Mulheir has worked with governments and community-level organisations across the world, transforming care systems for children and she immediately understood the problem at hand. She realised that addressing the issue of abandoned babies in Sudan would involve developing new care services and strengthening the provision of social work and medical care.  But it would also require a significant shift in attitudes towards single mothers and their babies.

Bringing Together Key Stakeholders

Georgette Mulheir worked closely with the Khartoum State government, local NGOs, and UNICEF. A Task Force was established to brainstorm solutions. The Task Force had to deal with multiple fronts. For example, immediate medical interventions were needed for children at the baby institution, to reduce mortality. Simultaneously, a network of emergency foster families and local adoption had to be set up from scratch. Any solutions that were developed had to be sustainable and delivered at scale. And, perhaps most importantly, the root-causes of the issues at hand had to be identified and changed. These included the separation of babies from their parents and the attitudes of local police, medical staff, social workers, journalists, Imams, families, and communities. Finally, government-level legislation and regulations had to be passed, implemented and followed to ensure sustainable programme funding and support.

Planning the Right Steps

The sequencing of the preventive measures that Mulheir and her team envisaged was essential. The project team could not immediately start speaking publicly about preventing the separation of babies from their mothers because of the negative attitude and stigma that single mothers faced. Instead, the Task Force started by finding emergency foster families and adoptive families for babies. From there began advocacy initiatives to persuade the relevant government offices that the Task Force’s proposed recommendations were possible. These initiatives were followed by the development of regulations to govern emergency foster care. Funding also had to be secured to run the various facets of the programme.

Local Imams and the government department that collects Islamic taxes for the needy – known as Zakat – agreed to help raise awareness in the community and fund foster families. These steps were accompanied by the establishment of a public-facing campaign to recruit emergency foster families and adoptive families. Concurrently, a helpline for families was provided for free by a local telephone company. Awareness was spread throughout the community via posters, leaflets, announcements at mosques, and grassroots organisations.