Organisations that create orphans

It is easy to get angry about the fact that HIV/AIDS and armed conflict creates orphans - it is much harder to get angry at well-meaning people and religious organisations that also create orphans.

In the last article, we met a well-meaning businessman who built an orphanage, turned some poor children into orphans and who is now turning them into tourist attractions. This is just one nice guy doing harm.

There are large organisations doing much more harm - but because they are faith-based organisations (churches) it is hard to campaign against them. Most people are quite wary about criticising the actions of churches because it seems like attacking the whole church and by extension, attacking the religion itself. Most people are brought up to believe that churches deserve respect and that they are guided in their actions by a divine being.

One church in Africa is creating a huge number of orphans by building villages for 1,000 orphaned and vulnerable children. They already have a number of these large villages and their ten year target is to 'rescue' 2 million children.

Once a village for 1,000 children has been built, it can not be left empty. Recruiting 1,000 children is quite a task. Most of the children recruited do have a living parent or two; their common denominator is poverty. Once living in the village, they are mentally branded orphans. They are now living in an orphanage.   

This recruitment of poor children to fill orphanages is also happening in Asia. The following film was made in 2008, but faith-based organisations in northern Thailand are still building orphanages and filling them with children from the hill tribes.

The film is longer than the normal vid-clip, but please watch the section from 7 to 22 minutes.

    

Fortunately, there are many churches that recognise the need to keep children in families and they seek to help the whole family rather than take the children away. See the From Faith to Action report [5.5 mb pdf]. 

Well meaning people creating orphans

Disease and conflict creates orphans - so do many well-meaning people and not-so-well-meaning people.

There is not much most normal folk can do themselves to stop HIV or to prevent violent conflict in far-off countries. There is also not much we can do directly or safely to prevent criminals trafficking children. For that we rely on the law, specialists and the police.

What we can all do, safely and without overturning our normal lives, is engage with the well-meaning people who are creating orphans. Well-meaning people creating orphans sounds like a contradiction; an oxymoron, yet it is happening today.

A real example is a international businessman in a developing country who has done charitable work for many years. A genuinely nice and well-meaning guy. He and some of his international contacts decide to do something more substantial - they decide to build an orphanage. Which they do. They then need to fill this orphanage with children.

Most of the children living in the orphanage today have one or two living parents. Two of the children even have their mother working on the staff of the orphanage. Yet, this place is called an orphanage, the newsletters refer to the children as orphans, letters written by the children refer to themselves as orphans.

This place has turned children in poverty into orphans. You'd think being poor was hardship enough, without having a new identity - as an orphan.

This well-meaning businessman knows about the studies and the evidence about the harm done to children by placing them in orphanages. He knows about child-rights and the importance of family life. He knows that he could change the orphanage to make it into one of many things that would help the needy in the community. But he is trapped.  

He is trapped because those people who provided funds to buy the land and to build the building did so on the basis it would be an orphanage. He finds it difficult to say to them now that orphanages are not good for children. 

'Orphan' is a powerful word in fund-raising. It is so much harder to raise funds for a community centre or for street children or for a transition home.        

There is an even sadder part to this story - the orphanage is going to be used as a tourist attraction. A nearby cafe on a tourist route will start to promote visits to the orphanage. To raise funds. It will also ask for foreign volunteers - also to raise funds.

Poverty is not a tourist attraction. Poor children are not tourist attractions. Every tourist that gives a donation to an 'orphanage' while on holiday incentivises more people to build orphanages and fill them with more poor children - separating them from their families - creating more orphans.

If tourists or volunteers are known to give dollars to an orphanage, others in the neighbourhood will naturally regard that as a viable, lucrative business and copy it.

What normal folk can do is to engage orphanage owners in debate. Every time you receive a request to help support an orphanage - refer to www.replace-campaign.org or www.orphanages.no or ask the simple question ... 

Where are all the orphanages run by UNICEF, Save the Children, Plan International, Terres des Hommes and all the other leading child welfare organisations? 

There are none. Not one. None of the leading child welfare organisations support orphanages for many very good reasons and neither should we. 

Please help our well-meaning businessman get out of the trap by telling him that if he changes the orphanage into a facility that UNICEF would approve of (in theory), we will support it. But we will not support orphanages. We will not be a part of something that creates orphans.

In the charity system, the giver decides what's best.

If you hang around the International Development, NGO and charity scene for long, you will meet passionate do-gooders, deep-thinking theorists, many motivated by a religious duty, some quiet, some very noisy and many who regard a job in an NGO as the next best thing to a government job-for-life.

For years I listened to (and joined in some) dinner-table debates about the rights-based approach - women's rights, girl's rights and so on. Like many working in the commercial world, then, I felt that a lot of development work was a bit wishy-washy. 'Feed the world' and yet they are still hungry a decade later - there must be something wrong with the strategy.

Recently, I got to know of the work of Hope and Homes for Children, who are dedicated to getting children out of orphanages and into families, and of course it struck me that they are working against all the many well-meaning people raising funds to support existing orphanages and even to build new orphanages.

Some people building orphanages and others knocking them down! Lots of well-meaning people are working against each other, wasting public donations, creating chaos and making the charity sector look ridiculous.

Where is the framework, the manual, the guidelines, the 'Development for Dummies' so that we all work towards the same goal?

A little research shows that all the countries in the United Nations have agreed to many frameworks (conventions, guidelines, charters, covenants). On the subject of children and orphanages there are in fact two agreed frameworks that just about every country has signed up to - the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guidelines on Alternative Care.

Everyone in every charity, development agency, NGO, foundation, church and trust has access to these guidelines. Why don't they follow the guidelines?

It is as if the board or executive committee of a commercial company developed, agreed on and published a strategy yet some people in the company are implementing a different, opposing strategy.

My analysis is that many people are motivated by charity (philanthropy) and in the charity system the giver decides what is best for the receiver. In contrast, the 'rights-based approach' is based on agreed laws and seeking justice for people based on those laws, not based on giving them charity.

The desire to be charitable can be a fine thing, but it needs to be channelled through a rights-based framework.

I have many rights, some of which I actually know about and regard as precious. My freedom to change jobs, my freedom to decide my own politics and religion, my freedom to not to be put into prison without a trail by a jury of my peers, my freedom to own things, my freedom to choose who I marry, if at all, and so on.

I do not want my freedoms and rights to be based on someone's sense of charity.

I want my rights and freedoms based on law - based on a framework, a convention, guidelines that we all agree on.

Furthermore, I know that if I don't support the law when it applies to others, I can hardly ask it to protect me.

A lot of people are well equipped with education and finance to fight their own battles in life, but there is a group that particularly relies on others to protect them - children. When their primary protectors, their parents, are doing a good job, excellent.

When their primary protectors aren't coping well and a child is suffering or at risk, the role of protector falls onto society. Here is when we all need to work within the same framework or we face the farce of half of us building orphanages and half of us trying to get kids out of orphanages. What a waste of money and good intentions.

In summary:

• We need to protect other people's rights if we are to be able to enjoy our own rights. 
• Children are a particularly vulnerable group - there are millions suffering today. 
• There is an agreed framework on how to help children - the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Please read An Introduction to the Rights-Based Approach.

If you support an orphanage, you are acting against the best interest of children

The REPLACE Campaign promotes:

• the phasing out of all orphanages through family reunification (most children in orphanages have family they could live with)
• addressing the root causes of children being separated from their parents

There are many problems created by using orphanages as a childcare system. Orphanages:

• do not prepare children for self-reliance as adults 
• prevent proper socialisation of children during their formative years  
• do not provide family love and protection 
• cause identity problems that last long into adult life
• contribute to discrimination and stigmad
• result in children losing trust and hinder them developing strong relationships
• prevent children from developing life skills and coping mechanisms
• discourage community participation in solving problems 
• are not cost ineffective compared to other solutions 
• do not address the root causes of children’s problems
• do not take individual differences into account

Supporting orphanages goes against the child welfare strategies of nearly every country in the United Nations. The UN has stated that the best place for children to develop is in a family. None of these countries has a child welfare strategy that promotes orphanages as a solution. If you support an orphanage, you are acting against the policy of the country you are trying to assist and you are acting against the best interest of those children.

An orphanage is no place for a child.

Education - Because I am a Girl

If you follow world news, you will have read about Malala Yousufzai, a 14 year old girl in Pakistan and an advocate for girls' education in her country. She was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen on a school bus in the Swat Valley on Tuesday last week, two days before the first International Day of the Girl.

Malala won international prominence after highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat with a blog for the BBC. Using the pen-name Gul Makai, she wrote about suffering caused by militants who had taken control of the Swat Valley in 2007 and ordered girls' schools to close.

At the weekend doctors said that Malala was showing signs of improvement, although she remained unconscious and on a ventilator. She is being flown to a medical facility in the UK that has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury. She is expected to need treatment to repair or replace damaged bones in her skull and to undergo neurological treatment.

On Thursday last week, Plan International launched a worldwide campaign called 'Because I am a Girl'. It was a spectacular event with iconic landmarks around the world lit up in pink, including the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, Niagara Falls, the London Eye, the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, the Helvetia Statue in Bern, the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, Qutub Minar in Delhi and many others.

It is becoming increasing obvious that one of the most effective ways of influencing social development and helping to eradicate poverty is by ensuring girls have access to good education. Globally, 1 in 3 girls is denied an education. Plan's Because I am a Girl campaign aims to support millions of girls to get the education, skills and support they need to transform their lives and the world around them.

As all parents know, formal education in school is an important part, but only a part of a child's overall education. Living in a family and learning through being a part of that family is critical to being able to be a parent oneself. Isolating children in orphanages denies them that experience.

If we want to make the world a better place for our own children, we need to make the world a better place. We can all help by supporting initiatives like Plan's Because I am a Girl instead of supporting orphanages.

There is another solution, one that does not lie.

There is no lack of recognition that serious problems exist in our global family. We see the problems broadcast on our screens and in our newspapers every day. But what can we do?

Today's world is characterised by fast food, ready-made meals and heat-and-serve dinners. All too often we seek a ready-made solution to childcare - nicely packaged, labelled for quick identification with simple, easy to follow instructions.

An orphanage meets these requirements. Box the children up in an orphanage, clothe them, provide food and water, and add some education. Come back in ten years, take out the children and serve into society.

The REPLACE Campaign monitors the international media every day and each day we read of another fund-raising project to support or start an orphanage. Every day we read of well-meaning people going out to volunteer at orphanages. Often with a dash of instant-celebrity status. Instant philanthropy. Instant karma. Follow the instructions, come back in ten years, take out the child and serve into society.

An orphanage is a packaged solution that tells a lie. Most of the children in orphanages are not orphans. The packaging is misleading. It is a solution needs to be taken off the shelves.

There is another solution, one that does not lie, that is much harder to describe and not as easy to raise funds for. This solution does not come in a nicely packaged box. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. This solution requires recognising each child as an individual. This work is usually carried out quietly, without fanfare, by unsung heroes.

These two new videos show the solution in practice. Please spend a few minutes to watch them.

Elvis' Grandmother

Hope and Homes for Children resettlement work in Rwanda

 

Thanks to Give a Little

We would like to thank Give a Little charity shop, who has chosen International Child Campaign as their supported charity from August to November 2012. Your support is greatly appreciated and quite critical to us being able to run the REPLACE Campaign.

Give a Little is an independent charity shop in Streatham High Street, London. It raises money for a number of childrens charities, wordwide as well as in the UK. Details about Give a Little can be found on their website.

Thank you very much Caroline (and your team).

Child deaths in Ireland 2000 to 2012, while in contact with the State's childcare system.

A report by the Independent Child Death Review group has identified 196 deaths of young people who were in contact with the Ireland's child-protection services between 2000 and 2010.

Here is a summary by the Irish Times



Follow this link to download the report's Executive Summary. (165 KB)
The full report can be downloaded from here. (7.8 MB)

Orphanages in Japan

All too often we associate orphanages with the poorer, developing countries. Here is an insight into the plight of abandoned children in the country with the third largest economy in the world, Japan.

Here are some extracts from two articles written by Cynthia Ruble for the Japan Daily Press. Links to the two articles can be found below. Please read them both.

"A little boy had been brought over from the baby orphanage to join the 3-to-18-year-olds’ orphanage. This is the way the system is set up here. Suddenly uprooted from the only home he had known, he was plopped down into a big building full of older boys. Though I had just walked into the room and he was seeing me for the first time, he clung to me for all he was worth and would not be comforted. I’ve rarely witnessed anything as pitiful."

"Tokyo is one of the top cities of the world. Its name is synonymous with “leading-edge.” So, you may surprised to find that in 2010, child welfare workers there put 242 babies under one year of age into orphanages, while they put 0 babies into foster homes or the arms of adopting parents."

"There were 36,450 children in the orphanage system in Japan in March, 2011."

"The fact is that the vast majority of children in orphanages here do have parents. Parents are allowed to put their babies/children in orphanages for any number of reasons. They don’t even need to visit them. They can leave them there, and often do, until they reach 18 years of age. The government will not proactively sever their parental rights."

"... asked a high government official why Japan had such a system, as opposed to promoting adoption and foster care like other developed nations." The answer .... "There are many jobs involved in this system. Plus, we don’t like change."

"Tokuji Yamanta, a former child welfare worker in Aichi prefecture and well-known champion of Japan’s children, told me recently that the children who live in orphanages for many years are hurt in deep and complex ways. Some who eventually end up in family environments can develop reactive attachment disorder in which they regress to behaving like a baby. Some years ago, Britain did a study of children who grew up in orphanages and the findings were so disturbing that they shifted their policy to ensure more children were cared for in foster families. The Japanese government doesn’t study this issue, in Mr. Yamanta’s opinion, “because it doesn’t want to know the truth and thus be forced to change.”

"Orphanages receive government funds based on the number of children they have and are thus not motivated to try to get children adopted or into foster care."


Japan’s Forgotten Children
http://japandailypress.com/japans-forgotten-children-113905

Japan’s Forgotten Children, Part 2
http://japandailypress.com/japans-forgotten-children-part-2-a-call-to-action-184533

Children helping children

As part of the REPLACE Campaign's school outreach programme, we joined a class of students in New Delhi, via a live video-link. They showed genuine interest in helping alleviate the suffering of less well-off children and they have a good understanding of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Their teacher showed them the REPLACE Campaign presentation and then we discussed the ways we can all assist children who are separated from their parents and those at risk of separation. We also discussed the role of campaigning and the role of service providers who manage foster care programmes and adoption programmes. Most importantly, we looked at the importance of families and how to support those who are having great difficulty providing for their children.

Like many school children, these students are actively involved in raising money for charity. When it comes to deciding which charities to support, teachers have the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that a child's right to a family is observed.

We would like to thank the school principal, all the children in Form 4 and in particular Vandana for inviting the REPLACE Campaign into her classroom.

You can download the pdf version [600 kb] or the powerpoint version [320 kb] 

of the REPLACE Campaign presentation for schools.

Why are we placing children in such risk?

The sexual abuse of children living in residential care homes in England is in the spotlight after nine men were jailed last week for sexual offences against teenage girls. At least one of the victims was living in a children's home.

In England there is a high level of regulation and oversight of childcare and yet these abuses of vulnerable children still happen. In countries where the oversight is much lower and where corruption protects the perpetrators of such crimes, so many more children suffer abuse every day.

Children's residential homes are almost a thing of the past in England with preference given to foster care. In the foster care system, children usually live in a normal house in a normal street, with a normal family, go to school and play outside along with children who have not suffered separation.

In residential care homes and orphanages, vulnerable children are gathered together and looked after by employees of the system and are stigmatised as being 'in care'.

England has 49,000 children living in foster care, but there are still nearly 5,000 children living in residential homes. In Uganda it is estimated that more than 37,000 children live in residential homes. In today's world with such awareness of health and safety, why do we continue to place children at such risk of abuse?

It emerged last week that these children's homes in England have reported 631 cases of children being sold for sex in the past five years. Four years ago ministers rejected a proposal to set up a network of emergency shelters for runaway children because publicising where these shelters were [which is necessary for them to be of any use] is essentially putting up a sign saying 'lots of vulnerable young people staying here'. It would put the children at enormous risk of exploitation.

And yet, children in residential homes are placed in this very same danger.

Mr Loughton Parliamentary Under Secretary for Children and Families in the Coalition Government said: "The extent of this [abuse] has been underestimated and under-reported for a long time."

REPLACE campaigns for the replacement of all children's homes and orphanages with family support and foster care. Please support the campaign and help all vulnerable and orphaned children to live in families (and not in institutions like residential homes and orphanages where they are at such a high level of risk of abuse).

Best-Practice Process for Childcare

Charity tug-of-war with children in the middle

The Ugandan government has commissioned an Alternative Care Task Force to review the current state of its childcare systems. This is the first time since childcare was decentralised to the districts in 1996 that we are starting to get a countrywide view of the situation. It will be the benchmark on which future development will be built.

The initial results reveal many disturbing issues. While the Ugandan government has taken this first step in developing an effective childcare system for its orphaned and vulnerable children, it will take a concerted effort by the government, civil society, faith-based organisations, the people of Uganda and the international community to continue and complete the transformation.

Number of children in residential care unclear

The figures are startling. According to the study, an estimated 37,000 children are currently living in childcare institutions across Uganda. While these are commonly referred to as orphanages, most children living in them have at least one living parent. There are 12,000 registered children in residential care, yet welfare officers and those working on the Alternative Care Task force estimate that there are an additional 25,000 unregistered children in care. Getting an accurate picture is very difficult given the general lack of accountability and transparency of many of the organisations that manage childcare institutions.

This consistent lack of data on children in care and the widespread disregard for the registration and reporting requirements is of gravest concern, given that more than 98% of childcare institutions in Uganda are funded by private organisations - mainly international charities and churches. Of all the children assessed in the pilot study, more than half did not have a required Care Order, the most basic requirement for caring for another person’s child.  

Recent surge in childcare institutions

There has been a massive rise in the number of childcare institutions in Uganda since 1996, when the last figures were published. Then there were 35 childcare institutions, today there are more than 500, of which only 6 are run by the state. This means that charities and churches, mostly funded from abroad, are effectively running Uganda’s non-parental childcare system, independently of the Ugandan government.

That 78% of these organisations are not properly registered shows a remarkable rejection of modern principles of international development best practice which emphasises community empowerment and supporting countries through partnerships, collaboration, the transfer of skills, rights awareness and the creation of long-term sustainable initiatives. Transplanting an outdated childcare solution (orphanages) into another country, especially when that solution has been rejected at home, is at best astonishing and at worst, severely detrimental. This fact alone raises serious questions over the professionalism of the charities and churches involved.

Some observations to come from the pilot study:
“Children are recruited in line with a ‘vision’ rather than the needs of the community"
“There is very little will to resettle children when child sponsorship is involved"
“Most children in the institutions assessed HAVE families”
“International adoption reduces efforts to find Ugandan solutions”
“Some institutions admitted donors not willing to fund [domestic] resettlement activities”

International adoption as a last resort

According to best-practice in childcare, international adoption (or inter-country adoption) should only to be considered as an acceptable childcare solution when all other alternative childcare solutions have been tried and all have failed. These solutions are, in order:

• reunification with birth families
• placement in kinship care
• placement in domestic foster families 
• permanent placements with domestic adoptive parents 

For children with severe disabilities, this would include provision of long-term respite care. Only when all these solutions have been exhausted, should international adoption be regarded as a solution that is in the best interest of the child.

It is therefore startling indeed that 40% of Ugandan childcare institutions assessed in the study are active in international adoption and more than 22% of them use this as their only means of finding a family for children in their care, with no attempts made to find the children’s birth-parents or explore domestic adoption as a solution.

Of huge concern is that the steep rise in the number of childcare institutions in Uganda coincides with a sharp rise in international adoptions. For example, from 2000 to 2003, less than 20 children a year were adopted into the US from Uganda. From 2004 to 2008,  the number increased steadily and by 2010, the figure rose to 200. It is estimated that this year, the figure will be close to 1,000.

Accountability and transparency in inter-country adoption 

Uganda is not as yet a signatory to the Hague Convention on InterCountry Adoption, an international convention aimed at preventing the abduction, sale of, or traffic in children, and which works to ensure that inter-country adoptions are always in the best interests of the child. This means that the process of adopting a child from Uganda is significantly easier and under less national and international scrutiny than adoptions from countries that are signed up to and bound by the Convention.

Four of the five top countries providing children for adoption to the US are not Hague Convention signatories; the one that is has only just signed up. As more countries apply transparency and accountability to their inter-country adoption process, the number of children they put up for inter-country adoption will drop and greater efforts will be made to first seek domestic solutions.

Entrenched positions and protecting reputations

Besides the issue of international adoption, there is the further issue that many charities have invested a lot of capital and reputation into their position on childcare. While some have made the transition (and have moved from building and running institutions to instead supporting reunification, family support and fostering services, as well as domestic adoption schemes) others have dug deeper into their positions.

Barnardo's is an example of a charity that has moved with the times. Fifty years ago, the UK childcare system was largely based on orphanages, with a high percentage managed by Barnardo's. After significant national childcare reform in the 70s, the orphanage system was shut down and replaced with family-based alternatives, in which Barnardo's continues to play an active and important role.

Yet many organisations today refuse to change, trapped by their past and fearful this would entail an admittance of guilt in terms of not acting in the best interest of the child.

Charity tug-of-war with children in the middle 

The trend to deinstitutionalise childcare is starting to take root in many countries around the world. For instance, Uganda's neighbour Rwanda has already committed to reforming its childcare system and aims to shut its 30+ orphanages within the next few years, or as soon as it can find adequate family-based childcare solutions for all children currently in its institutions and build a social structure to support all future abandoned children without needing to rely on an orphanage system. This complex process is being supported by childcare specialists working in the field of deinstitutionalisation.

Yet, even with clear and growing evidence of the harm caused to children by institutional care, many international charities, NGOs and churches continue to open orphanages in Africa, rather than supporting the reunification and domestic fostering model that often exists in their own countries.

In this tug-of-war, vulnerable children are being caught in the middle. On one end of the rope, charities and churches are opening up childcare institutions (orphanages) at a startling rate. In some districts of Uganda, they are opening as many as two to three a month. On the other end are governments and childcare specialists working at placing children into family life and deinstitutionalising the childcare system by closing down orphanages and setting up structures and services to prevent children entering them in the first place.

Public trust in charities and churches is high and there is often a blanket of perceived infallibility over their actions and policies. The general public still believes that building an orphanage in Africa or Asia is a good thing to do, based on the perception that children in orphanages are parentless or ‘orphans’ and we must care for them; but the fact is that the vast majority are not orphans and orphanages are not a good way to care for them.

When a charity appeals for funds to help poor, starving, homeless orphans, it appears to be heartless to even stop and question their motives. Similarly when a church issues an appeal to support an orphanage in Africa or Asia, it is almost irreligious to question their aims and methodology. The media is also naturally wary of criticising the charities and churches’ child welfare practices, unless there is clear evidence of trafficking or other abuse.

In the past, donors often decided what was best for the ‘needy’ and how their funds should be spent, which led to a wide range of childcare systems. In 1989, a generation of children ago, the countries in the world, through the United Nations, produced the Convention on the Rights of the Child which lays out in no uncertain terms, our agreed standards and duties on children and childcare. Only three countries have not signed this convention; 193 countries have. The world has never before been in greater agreement about childcare standards and best-practice.

The Convention states quite clearly that a child’s place is in a family, and that every child has the right to family life. While the debate on childcare rages behind closed doors, families and children in particular, are caught in the middle of this tug-of-war.
 
Families being torn apart 

The undeniable poverty of a large number of families in Africa and Asia, coupled with the developed world’s general public’s belief that orphanages are a solution, is breaking families apart.

Supporting a system that separates a child from its family by providing food, clothing, education and a roof to vulnerable children in the form of orphanage care, is misguided and causes great harm. Even without delving into the technical aspect of the debate, all developed and developing world donors and supporters of orphanages should first look at their own society. Most will see an absence of orphanages. Why build and support a system for others that has been closed down decades ago at home?

It is also common sense that a child should not be separated from its parents. If the family is desperately poor, we should support the whole family rather than remove the child, feed it, clothe it and let the family fragment and suffer, not only materially, but with the additional loss of its child.

The Ugandan government and people have some friends

On a positive note, a number of international organisations are supporting the Ugandan government and its citizens to build an effective childcare system that adheres to best-practice and respects the rights of their children. Ground-breaking work is happening to create a domestic fostering and adoption system. One such organisation has resettled over 100 new-born babies in the last two years. Instead of feeding the babies into the cash-rich international adoption system, the families of the abandoned infants have been traced, the children and families have been reunited and all have been supported economically and with counselling.
 
Where the birth-parents are assessed as incapable of giving the baby a decent and secure childhood, other Ugandans have come forward to support them through fostering and adoption.

The Ugandan government and people need more friends

The challenge of providing an effective childcare system in Uganda is massive and daunting, even when all organisations are pulling in the same direction. But with the continued active support for orphanages by some charities and churches, the job is made even harder.

However, there are some things that everyone can do to help. For instance, instead of volunteers wanting to help in an orphanage, which further traumatises the vulnerable children through repetitive dissolution of bonds and trust, they can help dismantle the system and build a long-lasting positive solution such as supporting reunification or education programmes, or campaigning for change.

Instead of donating money to orphanages through a charity or a church, they could seek out those organisations that are supporting the Ugandan government and its citizens and help fix the root the cause of just about all child separation and abandonment – poverty and prejudice.

Talking Taboo

This week, while preparing the REPLACE Campaign Schools Outreach Programme, we discussed the harm done by orphanage-care with a teacher in India. His feedback, added to our other research about the childcare system in India, highlighted one of the main taboos that the campaign is having to deal with.

The Taboo
Many orphanages are set up, run and financed by well-meaning, caring, philanthropic people, therefore to speak out against orphanages is disrespectful to good people who are working hard to help vulnerable children.

Advocating against orphanages is seen by many as attacking the charities and churches that run them. This is not a case of bad people doing bad things - that would be an easy campaign. Here we have a lot of good people, doing something that is against the best interest of the children.

The fact that orphanages are against the best interest of children is not the opinion of just one or two people. It is the opinion of all the 194 governments that agreed to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which opens with the unambiguous statement ...

 "a child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality should grow up in a family environment"

The REPLACE Campaign is based on child rights. Most churches and charities would be horrified to think that their actions are denying children their basic rights. But that is the case - even if it is taboo to say so.

The REPLACE Campaign calls on all charities, churches and individuals who run orphanages to ensure that children are treated according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.

Happy Birthday to You

Birthdays and birthday parties are vital moments in a child's life. A birthday is an individual's New Year. Birthdays celebrate the person. Birthdays are deeply personal in a way that Christmas, Eid, Pesach or  Diwali are not.

One of the first questions we ask a youngster we meet is 'How old are you?'.

Imagine not being able to answer that question. Imagine not knowing your birth date. Imagine not having your own special day. Our birthday, our name and our parents are all fundamental to our identity. Without an identity, who are we? What are we?

Malaika Babies Home (run by Child's i Foundation) is two years old tomorrow and we wish them a very happy birthday. Please send your birthday greeting and gift via www.childsifoundation.org

Babies are abandoned with frightening regularity in Uganda and many are taken to Malaika where the staff do everything possible to trace the family and then support the family and child. At first glance it seems that a babies home like Malaika is all about babies, but their work touches all sectors of society.

Malaika provides direct employment to numerous staff, highly skilled and semi-skilled. Its purchases help the local economy. Its adoption and fostering programmes influence the core bonds that shape a society. It sets an example to all of us of what can be done with a vision and determination. By reuniting families, it helps abandoned babies regain their lost identity.

Here is a video of Malaika's first birthday party, last year. We wish you a very happy second birthday tomorrow.

The World Does Not Need Any Orphanages

There is a very good article titled 'Africa Does Not Need More Orphanages', which really captures the essence of supporting families, rather than breaking them up. The REPLACE Campaign agrees about Africa not needing more orphanages, however the real situation is that 'The World Does Not Need Any Orphanages At All'.

There are enough countries in the world who have completely deinstitutionalised their childcare systems and have proved that the alternative is cheaper and far, far better for children. So why are there still so many orphanages today when lots of countries have shown that orphanages are a failed and abusive system of childcare, and that there is a cheaper and better alternative?

To be able to see the problem clearly, we need to separate state-run orphanages from privately-funded orphanages. The number of state-run orphanages is in fact coming down in many countries, but the number of privately-funded orphanages is not. Privately-funded orphanages are a healthy business.

The huge irony and sadness about this question is that it is primarily people living in countries that have got rid of their own orphanages that keep orphanages going in other countries! Take Cambodia for example.

76% increase in tourism - 75% increase in orphanages!

Since 2005, there has been a 75% increase in the number of residential care facilities (aka orphanages) from 154 in 2005 to 269 in 2010. Of these 269 orphanages, only 21 are state-run, the remaining 248 are funded by private individuals and organisations.

While the number of orphanages rose by 75% from 2005 to 2010, tourism in Cambodia rose from 1,421,615 visitors in 2005 to 2,508,289 visitors in 2010 - an increase of 76%. Remarkable.

One can expect the number of T-shirt shops and souvenir shops to increase proportionally to the increase in tourists - but orphanages! An increase in tourism is generally good for a country, economically. It does not make the country poorer, nor does it create orphans. What it does do is create a rich market ready to be exploited (in addition to the children being exploited).

Over 50 years of worldwide research shows harm done to children by placing them into institutional care. The research shows clinical personality disorders, growth and speech delays, and an impaired ability to re-enter society properly later in life and much more. Children placed in orphanages are at a much greater risk of physical and sexual abuse.

Almost all residential care centres in Cambodia are funded by individuals from overseas. Orphanages are seen as the first-stop and one-stop solution by tourists who, with the best intentions, provide support and funding to children in orphanages, often unaware of community-based care options and unaware of the harm done to children.

The REPLACE Campaign reaches out to potential donors and those thinking about volunteering in orphanages, and asks them to please take responsibility for their actions and act responsibly. Every dollar and every hour given to an orphanage does harm to children and diverts much needed funds away from positive, long-term solutions that respect the rights of children to a family life.

Orphanage is a marketing buzz word

I talked to one of the world leaders in organising volunteer programmes this week. On their website they offer volunteering programmes that include working in orphanages.

Before our discussion I sent our main concerns in writing as an agenda to our call.

1. Volunteering at orphanages provides on-going support for a failed and abusive welfare system - a system that was dismantled and discarded by the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and most countries in northern Europe from the 1950s onwards. All these countries moved to deinstitutionalise the care of vulnerable children - that is, close down orphanages in favour of reuniting families, family support, foster care and accelerated adoption. Yet today, there is a sharp increase in institutions in the developing world, primarily funded and supported by individuals and organisations in the countries that have closed down their own orphanages. 

The REPLACE Campaign calls on all supporters of orphanages to stop keeping a failed system alive and to support positive solutions that conform to international standards and agreements.

2. Those countries that have an abundance of orphanages today have all signed up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which enshrines the right to a family life. Countries that have reformed child welfare for their own children, but fund orphanages in other countries have also signed up to those conventions. 

We call on all signatories to the CRC to implement the convention.  

3. The right to live in a family is as important for a child in Namibia or Nepal as it is for a child in New Zealand or Norway. Those who say that what can be done in Norway can't be done in developing countries should look at the fantastic work being done in Uganda by the Child's i Foundation or by the Child Welfare Scheme in Nepal. There are few places in the world as challenging for social workers as Uganda. If it can be done there properly, without denying children's right to a family life, it can be done everywhere.  

We call on all providers of child care to ensure that every child in the world is treated equally.

4. Direct harm is done to the most vulnerable children in the world by the provision child care by tourists and by repeated broken attachments. Please read www.replace-campaign.org/volunteering.html and the relevant section in www.replace-campaign.org/harm.html 

We call on all those involved in supporting child welfare to ensure that they first do no harm. 

During our call we discussed how volunteering can be a great way to help make the world a better place. It can benefit the recipient and the giver, but volunteers and those that facilitate their volunteering are duty-bound to ensure that they first do no harm.

One particularly interesting point to come out of our conversation was that even though this particular volunteer company does realise the inappropriateness of childcare provided by tourists and especially the damage done by repeatedly broken bonds of friendship, their experience in marketing shows that potential volunteers are looking for orphanage trips and that the word orphanage has a powerful resonance.

Our challenge is to raise awareness in all potential volunteers about the harm done to children by placing them in orphanages to the point where instead of being a positive marketing word, orphanage is recognised as a word that signifies a failed and abusing childcare system.

Good deeds have a thousand fathers, but abuse is an orphan

A recurrent theme in the REPLACE Campaign is taking responsibility for our actions and for what we witness around us. Good deeds are claimed by many people, but abuse is disowned.

This week the Campaign contacted many people, including a large fundraising organisation and a journalist who had recently promoted a fundraising event to raise money for an orphanage in Africa. We asked the journalist to read up on child rights and therefore be more informed about projects she gave publicity to in the future - to ensure that she, and the projects, did no harm. We wrote to the large fundraiser for orphanages in a similar vein.

The replies we received were:

"I can't really comment on whether orphanages are inappropriate or not. I was just writing a local story about someone going out to help in one."

"We rely on our partner organizations to make the appropriate decisions based on the needs of the children in their care."

It is one thing for a journalist on a regional newspaper to duck the issue, but it is astounding that a large fundraiser does not take responsibility for the actions of the projects they directly support. This large fundraiser is a civil society organisation that professes to care passionately about orphaned and vulnerable children, yet it says it leaves to others the decision about how care is provided in projects that they help pay for.

The REPLACE Campaign engages with those who run and support orphanages, asking them to be accountable and responsible for the rights of children. Duty-bearers and those that put themselves in positions of duty, have to be accountable for their actions and the benchmark is clearly defined in the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children .

On a positive note, each week we find a number of inspiring projects, some of which we highlight in the positive solutions section of the website. Please have a look at this video about someone who decided to take responsibility and to do something about the pain she witnessed in the world around her.

For more videos go the the REPLACE Campaign Video Gallery

Supporting an orphanage today? Who will apologise for you tomorrow? Part 2

If you run an orphanage, or if you financially support one, will your government be apologising for you tomorrow?

The answer is 'no'.

This may seem strange bearing in mind that the British and Australian governments recently apologised to thousands of children who suffered abuse and neglect in orphanages through the 1940s to the 1980s, and the Canadian government is now under pressure to investigate and apologise for adoption practices prior to 1980.

However, no one will apologise for you if you run or finance an orphanage today. Most governments have signed up to conventions and guidelines that make it clear that traditional orphanages, that look after children long-term rather than placing them as quickly as possible into family environments, are not an approved way of providing childcare.

This is a similar situation to when various governments apologised for their part in slavery. They only apologised for their involvement prior to when slavery was made illegal. They did not apologise for anyone still engaged in it after it was banned.

From the 1940s to the 1980s, childcare in Canada, Britain and Australia was carried out mostly by well-meaning people who were helping children to the best of their knowledge and ability. But what they did then is unacceptable childcare practice in their countries today. Thousands of British and Austalian orphanages have closed down and neither country has orphanages today. Countries such as Rwanda and Romania have agreed to close all their orphanges.

Childcare today is no longer a hit or miss affair. We now have detailed internationally-recognised childcare guidelines and conventions, based on years of in-depth study. These guidelines clearly state that children should only be placed in residential care for the shortest possible time and carers should be dedicated to finding families for vulnerable children as soon as possible. A child belongs in a family; not in an institution.

Every child worldwide is equal. If an orphanage contravenes a child's rights in Australia, Rwanda and Romania it contravenes a child's rights in America, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Namibia, Mexico, Malawi etc.

Supporting an orphanage today? Who will apologise for you tomorrow? Part 1

The provincial governments in Canada are today facing the likelihood of class-action lawsuits, accusing them of being party to kidnapping, fraud and coercion that allegedly took place in maternity homes; most of which were run by religious organisations, such as The Salvation Army, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the United Church and the Presbyterian Church.

Many women have come forward, and are still coming forward, to state that they were coerced or forced into putting their babies up for adoption between the 1950s and the 1980s by:

• social workers who threatened women with police action unless they consented
• by matrons at church-run maternity homes who said unmarried women could not live there unless they agreed to an adoption
• by medical staff who denied women the right to hold their babies and reportedly gave them lactation-suppressants without their knowledge

A retired Calgary judge, who was once a high-ranking child welfare worker in the city, has come forward and corroborated some of the claims mothers have recently made about coercive adoption practices directed at unmarried mothers decades ago.

His account appears to confirm the coercion was systematic. He said the Salvation Army accepted teen mothers into their maternity homes on the condition they would surrender their baby and social workers purposefully withheld information about revoking the adoption or the option of temporary wardship.

The Salvation Army says it is conducting an internal review into its historic maternity homes. The United Church said last week the matter in Canada will warrant a great deal of attention and spokesperson Bruce Gregersen promised the church was committed to working with mothers to uncover what happened in its maternity homes.

The origin of this issue goes back to the Victorian era when many middle and upper class people in Canada were disturbed by the plight of unmarried mothers. Funds were raised and maternity homes were built that were designed to give unmarried mothers a safe place to give birth and to learn to care for their babies.

Initially, mothers and babies were not separated, in fact in some maternity homes a mother had to breast feed for at least three months to promote bonding. The unmarried mothers, however, were regarded as 'Fallen Women' and their babies labelled 'Illegitimate' or 'Bastards'. The social stigma that these labels carried was very real and deeply felt.

After World War II, attitudes changed and it was decided that unmarried mothers could be rehabilitated or made marriageable again after giving birth. Maternity homes (that were originally devised to help mothers and children stay together) now became the means to separate mothers and babies as adoption became the method by which a mother could 'be redeemed'.

Many of these homes were run by religious organisations in conjunction with the province or state. Each religious denomination seemed to have their own facility for the 'unwed mother'.

Valerie Andrews, the executive director of Origins Canada, which supports people separated by adoption, said many women and adoptees have added their names to a request for a federal enquiry.

The situation in Canada has many parallels with the Child Migrant issue for which the Australian and British governments have recently apologised.

We now regard many of the child care practices of fifty years ago as horrific and callous. They would certainly not be allowed today. However, they can be somewhat understood from a historical perspective when taking into account the very different social norms prevalent at the time. It is particularly sad that an organisation like the Salvation Army, that means so well, gets dragged into the controversy, but it serves to highlight the need for an agreed governing standard for child care.

Fortunately, we now have such a standard and those involved in child care today can rest easy that governments will not be apologising for them tomorrow - that is, if those involved in child care read and apply the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the  Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children.

If you are involved in child care, or if you financially support child care (such as orphanages), will your government be apologising for you tomorrow?

New report on the harm of volunteering at orphanages

Adverse emotional and psychological Effects

Aside from economic and employment questions, there are serious concerns about the impacts of short-term caregivers on the emotional and psychological health of very young children in residential care facilities. The formation and dissolution of attachment bonds with successive volunteers is likely to be especially damaging to young children. Unstable attachments and losses experienced by young children with changing caregivers leaves them very vulnerable, and puts them at greatly increased risk for psychosocial problems that could affect their long-term well-being.

Consistently observed characteristics of children in institutional care are indiscriminate friendliness and an excessive need for attention. Children in orphanages tend to approach all adults with the same level of sociability and affection, often clinging to caregivers, even those encountered for the first time only moments before. Children in more orthodox family environments of the same age tend to be wary towards newcomers, and show differential affection and trust towards their intimate caregivers and strangers.

Institutionalised children will thus tend to manifest the same indiscriminate affection towards volunteers. After a few days or weeks, this attachment is broken when the volunteer leaves and a new attachment forms when the next volunteer arrives. Although there is little empirical evidence on children's reactions to very short-term, repeat attachments over time, evidence from the study of children in temporary or unstable foster care indicates that repeated disruptions in attachment are extremely disturbing for children, especially very young children.

... many of the children they leave behind have experienced another abandonment, to the detriment of their short- and long-term emotional and social development.

Short-term volunteer tourists are encouraged to ‘make intimate connections' with previously neglected, abused, and abandoned young children. However, shortly after these ‘connections' have been made, tourists leave - many undoubtedly feeling that they have made a positive contribution to the plight of very vulnerable children. And, in turn, feeling very special as a result of receiving a needy child's affection. Unfortunately, many of the children they leave behind have experienced another abandonment to the detriment of their short- and long-term emotional and social development.

Voluntourism is potentially exploitative of children suffering adversity as a result of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Child advocates should protest these practices and welfare authorities should ensure they are stopped. Thus far, no formal regulations exist in any sub-Saharan African country to protect children from such practices. The weight of current evidence suggests that these activities are not in the best interests of children and those working to protect children and children's rights should be deeply concerned.

... and the first line of response should be to support those who can look after children best.

Families are best

Historically, residential care has increased during periods of social change and crisis - colonialism, communism in Eastern Europe, wars and natural disasters. HIV/AIDS also constitutes a crisis, but it is a long-wave event, and the first line of response should be to support those who can look after children best - their own families. Instead, some international agencies, donors, and local groups are contributing to the ever-increasing number of orphanages being established for children affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Together, a lack of support for families, increasing institutionalisation of vulnerable children, and a growing international volunteer tourism industry are placing very young affected children at increased risk.

The important points are these:

• Every available resource should be utilised to support families and extended kin to enable them to provide high quality care for their children. Out-of-home residential care should not be an option when support can be given to families to take care of their own children.
• Children out of parental care have a right to protection, including against experiences that are harmful for them. In particular, they have a right to be protected against repeated broken attachments as a result of rapid staff turnover in orphanages, exacerbated by care provided by short-term volunteers.
• Welfare authorities must act against voluntourism companies and residential homes that exploit misguided international sympathies to make profits at the extent of children's well-being.
• Lastly, well-meaning young people should be made aware of the potential consequences of their own involvement in these care settings, be discouraged from taking part in such tourist expeditions, and be given guidelines on how to manage relationships to minimise negative outcomes for young children.

... well-meaning young people should be made aware of the potential consequences of their own involvement in these care settings, be discouraged from taking part in such tourist expeditions.

This article is based on Richter, L. & Norman, A. (2010) ‘AIDS orphan tourism: A threat to young children in residential care', in Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies (in press).

Professor Linda Richter is the executive director of the research programme on Child, Youth, Family and Social Development.