Warda Shazadi Meighen is an immigration lawyer in Toronto and the founder of Landings Law.
Canadian immigration legislation states that adoptions that can lead to immigration must create a legal parent-child relationship and sever the pre-existing legal parent-child relationship. Many Islamic countries have adoption, or guardianship, regimes based on kafala law, by which adoptive parents become the sponsor or guardians of a child, but the pre-existing legal parent-child relationship is not severed. As a consequence, adoptions from many Muslim countries are not recognized under Canadian immigration law. Warda has launched a Charter challenge to change this.