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olicewoman Ida Hutagaol from Binjai Police in North Sumatra has been spending her free time at Djoelham Hospital in the city to tend to an abandoned baby boy, even going the extra mile for him by paying for every piece of necessary medical equipment.

The baby was discovered by local residents on Aug. 26 in a ditch located in the Limau Mungkur subdistrict in the municipality. Since then, the baby was admitted to the Djoelham Hospital.

Compelled by her compassion for the baby, Ida filed a request to the municipality’s social agency to adopt him. The filing occurred only three days after the boy was discovered and admitted to the hospital. Unfortunately, after three weeks, her request was declined by the agency.

Rudi Iskandar, a spokesperson for Binjai municipality, said the rejection was based on the first paragraph of Article 2 of the 2007 Government Regulation on Child Adoption, which requires foster parents have the same religion as the child.

The baby boy is considered a Muslim because according to the second paragraph of the article, the religion of a child whose origin can not be identified is by default the same as the religion professed by the majority of people in the sub-district where he or she is found. Ida is a Christian, while the Limau Mungkur village where the baby was found is predominantly Muslim.

“It was my sincere intention to adopt the baby, but why was it rejected just because my religion is different from the majority where he [the baby] was found?” Ida told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Ida’s story went viral on social media, including Facebook after the owner of an account, Johannes Surbakti, posted the story. It drew criticism from netizens, calling the regulation “discriminative.”

The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said he also regretted the rejection, as he thought it was not the agency’s authority.

“The court is the institution authorized to decide whether Ida should adopt the abandoned child,” he said.

Nahar, the Social Ministry’s director of child rehabilitation, defended the regulation by saying it was established to protect children’s rights. He added that it was to ensure blood relation between the children and natural parents was not broken.

“The article was written for the sake of the children and for social responsibility, so they would be nurtured like the [foster] parents take care of their own child,” Nahar told the Post on Wednesday.

Upon discovering an abandoned child, he added, a person should report to the police first, who would mention the child’s status as anak temuan, which means it is unclear whether he is abandoned or not. The child’s religion will be eventually appointed by the court at the same time as his or her status as abandoned child is ruled.

Johanna Debora Imelda, a social welfare expert from the University of Indonesia (UI), believed the case in Binjai was just one of many in the country where a person from a minority religion is prohibited from adopting orphans or abandoned children.

She said she understood the government’s intention to protect the abandoned children as there was a possibility that the child might bear the same religion as their natural parents.

However, she added the specific article may contradict with another law which also ensured the children’s rights, referring to the 2012 Law on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

According to the law, four basic rights of children should be fulfilled, including the right to live which includes the right to be protected by family.

“When a regulation can’t ensure the fulfillment of a child’s rights, they should refer to another law,” Johanna told the Post.

The problem, she added, is accentuated by a society which still looks more to the label — what is the religion — rather than the value of the religion itself.