Rethinking adoption law in England: early disclosure and Muslim families

Abstract Under English law, adoption permanently severs a child’s legal ties with their birth family, raising concerns about identity that sit uneasily with Islamic legal principles emphasising the preservation of lineage. These tensions are particularly acute for Muslim children, who are overrepresented in the English care system yet underrepresented in adoption. This paper argues that the resulting disparity derives in part from the tolerance of secrecy surrounding a child’s origins within English adoption law. Addressing the source of these tensions, the paper challenges the widespread assumption that adoption is prohibited in Islamic law. It examines recent legislative and judicial developments in Muslim-majority states that facilitate adoption-like arrangements while safeguarding children’s identity rights, highlighting that secrecy is the main source of religious concern. Against the policy context created by the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and its call for a ‘radical reset’, the paper identifies secrecy within English adoption practice as a continuing barrier to legitimacy and permanence, and proposes a clear policy requiring early disclosure of adoptive status, before age seven and with local authority support, to strengthen children’s identity rights and permanence outcomes across the care system.