Some 3,500 single mothers are registered in Algeria annually. Some 250 of them gave birth after an illegal pregnancy, and 3,200 babies are placed annually under the state's responsibility, according to the representative of the Algerian Ministry of National Solidarity, Abdalla Bushnaf, who was speaking in a national symposium held by the ministry in Tipaza ended on June 21, reported the Algerian newspaper <i>Al-Khabar"</i> on June 22, 2005.
Sociologists, psychologists, education and law experts, who participated in this symposium to discuss the single motherhood and the childhood without family called for forming of a future strategy for defending these mothers and encouraging them to keep their babies to ease the burden which falls on the state's shoulders.
A study presented at this symposium mentioned that 60% of the Algerian families kill their daughters as soon as they find out that they are pregnant illegally. Other women are thrown to the street, where they frequently become prostitutes to survive.
