Does funding orphanages create orphans?

If the unthinkable were to happen and you and your spouse, or one of your children and their spouse, were to die in a disaster, would your children or grandchildren be sent to an orphanage?

Most likely, before being sent to an orphanage there would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, and close family friends that would take care of your children. This is also true in developing countries where families live even closer to each other and have a greater role in helping each other raise children. In reality, there are relatively few cases where a child is completely without someone who could take care of them if they had the financial means to do so.

MYTH: Hordes of abandoned orphans - from the World Disaster Report 2005

The pervasive perception that thousands of orphans were dependent on international aid was spread, wittingly or not, but a number of agencies. On 15 February Reuters, citing Indonesian government and UNICEF figures reported: "Up to 10,000 Aceh children seek parents after the tsunami. " The reality is more complex. Firstly, the numbers: given their physical weakness, a far greater proportion of children were carried off by the waves than adults. UNICEF estimated children comprised half the victims, whereas before the tsunami only one in three inhabitants were children. "We have far more orphaned parents than orphaned children," pointed out UNIECF's Shannon Strother. Secondly, their status: by late February [just 2 months after the tsunami] only 60 children had been identified as 'unaccompanied minors', i.e., left without support from any adult they knew before the disaster. All other orphans between 6,000 and 10,000 according to UNICEF, were in "some kind of foster situation". Their extended family, their neighbors or their friends had taken them in.

Orphanages are attractive to donors
With the majority of children having someone willing to take care of them, why are there so many orphanages? Because, as the article West Africa, Protecting Children from Orphan Dealers states:

Donors are attracted to orphanages because they appear to be a simple solution, said Joachim Theis, UNICEF head of child protection for West Africa. “You have a building, you house children in it, it is easy to count them. And they are easy to fundraise for. It is a model that has been used for a long time. But it is the wrong model.”

Many of the children in orphanages are not actually orphans
After the tsunami, money came pouring into orphanages and foster care programs. I had two different instances where staff from an orphanage and a foster care program came to me seeking orphans. The foster care program and orphanage were built without first determining whether there was actually a need, and both programs eventually had to settle for street children. There were few children that were not cared for by family or living in a state sponsored boarding school.

The following examples are from the article West Africa, Protecting Children from Orphan Dealers

Of the estimated 1,821 children living in orphanage care in Sierra Leone, UNICEF and child protection agencies have verified just 256 as having lost both parents.

One in eight Liberians is classified as a child missing one or both parents. But many of the estimated 5,800 estimated children in orphanages are reportedly not orphans, according to local child rights activists.

This video on orphan dealers in Ethiopia is worth viewing.

Never assume that orphanages are licensed by the state

Just because an organization is seeking funds to build an orphanage does not mean they are actually licensed by the state to work with orphans.

A January 2009 study by the Social Welfare Department – responsible for children’s welfare and supervising orphanages – showed that up to 90 percent of the estimated 4,500 children in orphanages in Ghana are not orphans and 140 of the 148 orphanages around the country are un-licensed, said the department’s assistant director Helena Obeng Asamoah.¹

In Thailand, two theme orphanages were built after the tsunami. One was aimed at creating an all-orphan sports team, the other was developed to be a tourist facility. The children at the second orphanage waited on the tourists as part of a livelihoods training program. I question whether either of these orphanages were licensed by the state.

Why are there so many children with living parents in orphanages?

With so much money going to orphanages, parents may feel that it is the only way to provide for their children.

Maame Serwah, 40, sent her 10-year-old son to the Peace and Love Orphanage because she did not have the means to raise him. “It was even difficult to feed myself. I just could not handle the painful sight of him almost always crying. I believed the orphanage was a way out.”¹

When I visited UNICEF in Indonesia, I was told that parents were abandoning their children at orphanages because they didn't have the money to feed and clothe them anymore. This was such a problem that UNICEF was undergoing an extensive campaign to:

...promote family and community based care for separated children as opposed to institutionalization. The latter was a direct result of a growing interest by the foreign NGOs and some governments in building orphanages for separated children.³

As bad as the above examples sound, there are even worse examples of children with living parents being placed in orphanages. An article from today's Salt Lake Tribune states:

"A 2007 indictment alleged Samoan parents were tricked by workers with FOC [Focus on Children], a Wellsville agency, into giving up their children and that adoptive parents were falsely told the adoptees were orphans or abandoned. Prosecutors said the adoptive parents were told that communication with the birth families was forbidden.
The charges involved about 80 children, 66 of whom were placed with U.S. families"

Donors need to break free of the appeal of orphanages

Orphanages are naturally appealing projects, unfortunately, from the few examples given above it is clear that many do more harm than good. Donors should investigate a proposed orphanage thoroughly before donating. Donors should also consider donating to programs that support families and caretakers.

“A range of solutions, from safety nets to foster care to community care, have been shown to work, and are much cheaper than putting children in orphanages,” he said. “Putting children into institutionalized care instead of a family setting must always be a last resort."¹

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Articles cited in posting:
1. West Africa, Protecting Children from Orphan Dealers
2. Three myths - among many, The World Disaster Report, 2005
3. Indonesia - Emergency protection of children separated from parents in the tsunami - UNICEF
4. At least $108K sought for Samoan kids - Salt Lake Tribune

Related Posts:
Be cautious when funding orphanages
Hug-an-orphan vacations
The allure of the quick fix
It's time to stop telling pretty stories and start really evaluating the impact of aid

Related Articles:
IRIN Africa: Why family is best for orphans

Comments

[saundra]

Thought I'd share a recent BBC article.
China babies 'sold for adoption' on how children are taken from families that cannot afford to pay the fine for having more than 1 or 2 children are taken from them and place in orphanages where they are then sold for adoption to westerners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8130900.stm

[Saundra]

Dear Greg,

While a child being in a loving home where all of their spiritual, educational, physical, and emotional needs are met is a wonderful goal, how many children living with both parents in America fall into that category?

If a parent wants meet the educational and physical needs of their children but cannot afford to, is it not better to help them financially, rather than financially supporting institutions? And how many of these institutions are able to truly meet all of these needs, especially the emotional ones?

I agree that there are cases where the children are sold into slavery or made to look pitiful. How many of the extended families would not do this if they had the money they needed to feed and clothe the children?

You argue that countries do not have financial resources to fund social services to monitor the children, and yet there is money to house, clothe, educate and feed them, which is surely more expensive. Could the money that is donated to orphanages be redirected to support the social service system needed to monitor the well-being of the children.

If efforts have been made to financially support the birth family, or to monitor and support the extended family, and it is determined that the needs of the child are still not met, then an orphanage could be the solution. Unfortunately, not all orphanages are: properly managed, integrated into the community, or provide a loving environment, as you recommend.

Do you have guidelines that could be used by donors to evaluate the quality of the orphanage before donating to them? I would be happy to share those guidelines on this blog.

[Greg Timmons]

While there are certainly elements of truth to this, it is a subject that is far from being one in which blanket statements can be made regarding orphanages or children's homes. There is no doubt that the best possible scenario for children is to be in a LOVING home in which all of their needs are met. All of their needs are physical, emotional, educational and spiritual. They must have critical needs to survive, they must know those critical needs will be met each day to have security, they must know that they are loved and be able to bond, they must have education and life skills to survive as an adult. There are classifications of orphans. Some are true orphans, some are social orphans, both by definition are children without parental care. Parental care can come from any loving adult willing and able to provide ALL of the children's needs. Unfortunately, poverty, disease, cultural traditions, inequality and war have produced well over 100 million children who are not having these needs met. Yes alot of these children are social orphans, but the alternative to a children's home for many of them, is an uncle or other relative who uses them as a servant, makes them eat from the floor after the other children have eaten, and all only after they have provided the required labor to do so. They are often sold into sexual or other slavery, sent to beg, even disabled in some manner in order to make them look more pitiful. The point being, relatives are VERY often not the answer for the care of the child. Often times even a single parent is not the answer when they are drug addicted, alcoholic, abusive, or simply unable or unwilling to care for the child. Children's homes that are properly managed, with full integration into the local community for the children in their care, that provide for all of the children in a loving manner, are not insitutions, produce healthy, happy young adults who will break the cycle. Countries without social services for the children simply do not have the resources to monitor foster care type situations or even relative based foster care. In these countries, group homes are still the best answer, but they must be closely monitored and governed by a responsible entity in an efficient and respectful manner.

[Stella]

please see the link which backs up this article, see about halfway down for infov on reunions with birth families >

http://about-orphans.blogspot.com

[Megan]

This is sooo well summarized. It seems obvious the faultiness of the model. But I learned the hard way - was a sucker for orphaned kids and thought it was a great way to help children "with no one else." And then I started meeting the "orphans" biological families who used the home as a longterm dysfunctional free b-sitting service.
Sigh.