Some excerpts from the first chapter of ‘How to Help, not Harm: What Living in Orphanages Does to Children and How You Can Help’, written by me:
“Most of us very much want to do something to help the weakest among us, those who are most vulnerable. We feel a moral obligation to help improve the lives of those who are unable to help themselves. And we feel a sense of satisfaction and contentment when we think that a small sacrifice on our part will improve the quality of life of those less fortunate. From ancient times, the moral obligation and the command to take care of widows and orphans has been heard across different cultures and different religions.
This sense of obligation is commendable. We should do what we can to help those who need help. We should recognise that these are people who need help–regardless of their nationality, religion, or political opinion–and that at some point we, or our parents, our children or our friends, could end up in the same unfortunate position through no fault of our own. The desire to help is not the problem. The problem lies in knowing the difference between what would truly help those in need and what might end up harming them. We do not like to think that the sacrifice or the kind, generous gesture that we have made might do more harm than good. But it would be irresponsible not to consider the possibility if we are serious about wanting to help.
The potential to do more harm than good exists in all forms of charitable help and developmental aid. The proof of that can be found in the serious harm and in some cases death and destruction as a result of well-meaning but ill-informed ‘charitable aid’ given in many developing countries over the past century and more. An example is the introduction of the European notion of institutional childcare across the world Instead, in this book, I want to focus on one tiny aspect of it: the potential harm of sponsoring so-called orphanages, something I am quite familiar with.
[…]
What could possibly be wrong with helping an orphanage? To get to the bottom of this, we have to start with the misleading term ‘orphanage’. Using the word ‘orphanages’ makes it sound like they are filled with children who have lost their parents and who have no one to care for them. In fact, 80 to 90%–in some cases even more than 90%–of children in so-called orphanages have at least one living parent. Many of them even have two living parents. This is why I only use the word ‘orphanage’ between quotation marks and prefer to speak of children’s homes, a more accurate term.
UNICEF calculated that in 2005, there were 132 million single and full orphans–meaning children who have lost at least one parent–in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the areas where institutional childcare is most prevalent. Of those 132 million only 13 million had lost both parents. UNICEF also states that evidence shows that the vast majority of single and full orphans live with a surviving parent, grandparent or other family member.[2] This is illustrated by the fact that out of an estimated 8 million children in children’s homes less than 10 to 20% are full orphans. So clearly, so-called orphanages are not all that essential for making sure that orphans have a home. The proof of this lies in the fact that only a small fraction of real, full, orphans end up in ‘orphanages ’.
This raises the question: if ‘orphanages’ are not full of orphans, who do live there? There are many reasons for children to end up in children’s homes, but the top ones are poverty, special needs and education. Education, in this context, splits up into four branches, which overlap with poverty and special needs:[6]
- Poverty: When a family is unable to afford school fees, books, uniforms and transport to school, they may realise how important education is, and want to provide it, but be unable to do so for their children.
- Presence of schools within a distance that can be traveled daily: In some remote rural areas, there may quite simply not be any school within half a day’s walking distance.
- Minority background: Children who come from an ethnic or religious minority background, particularly if that minority is repressed in their country, may not be admitted to regular schools, depriving them of their right to education.[7]
Special needs: Mainstream schools may refuse to accept children with severe physical and any type of cognitive impairment, while special education facilities are often rare and therefore not necessarily available within a distance that can be traveled.
Parents or family members who do not know how to feed their children and keep them warm, who are unable to give their children an education and who are unable to afford the medical bills or the special equipment needed by their child with special needs often feel that they have no choice but to give up their child to a children’s home. In most cases, children are abandoned not because their parents do not care about them, but as an act of sacrifice, hoping to give them a better future.[3] In Chapter 4, this phenomenon will be explained in more detail.
Unfortunately, in some countries unscrupulous people have discovered a market in forming a link between wealthy Westerners who are willing to make donations or volunteer to improve the lives of ‘poor orphans’, and parents who are willing to sacrifice themselves by giving up their children so that they will have more to eat, an education and a rosy future. [4] In this way children and families are exploited so that people running the childcare institution can get rich on foreign donations: the ‘orphanage industry’. […]
So, there is a definite danger in sponsoring children’s homes because it causes them to attract more and more children.[1] Particularly children who should not be there at all. However, as I shall explain further in Chapter 4, the good news is that while most people still think of children’s homes as the most appropriate and efficient way of taking care of children, this is quite simply not true, there are better and more cost-effective ways. Not only is living in a children’s home not good for a child, of all the possible solutions to the various problems that lead to the child ending up in a children’s home, it also the most expensive and most complicated to manage.[2] In Chapter 4, solutions will be provided that do not only give better results and provide a better outlook for the children, but that are also far cheaper and more cost-effective.”
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[1] Eric Mathews, Eric Rosenthal, Laurie Ahern, Halyna Kurylo (2015) No Way Home: The exploitation and abuse of children in Ukraine’s orphanages Disability Rights International USA p65
[2] Ariel Carroll (2015) Terms of Reference: Funding stream analysis of residential care Elevate Children Funders Group p2; Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p17
[1] Kevin Browne (2009), The Risk of Harm to Young Children in Institutional Care. The Save The Children Fund, London p7-8; Unknown (2014) Website: CRIN DISABLED CHILDREN: The African Report on Children with Disabilities: Promising Starts and Persisting Challenges
[2] Corinna Csaky (2009) Keeping Children out of Harmful Institutions. Why We Should Be Investing in Family Based Care The Save The Children Fund, London p10; Unicef (2010) At Home or in a Home? Formal care and adoption of children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Geneva, Switzerland p23
[3] Eric Mathews, Eric Rosenthal, Laurie Ahern, Halyna Kurylo (2015) No Way Home: The exploitation and abuse of children in Ukraine’s orphanages Disability Rights International USA p28-29
[4] Corinna Csaky (2009) Keeping Children out of Harmful Institutions. Why We Should Be Investing in Family Based Care The Save The Children Fund, London p14; Unknown (2014) Orphanage Trafficking and Orphanage Voluntourism. Frequently asked questions. Next Generation Nepal p4, 6
[1] Kevin Browne (2009), The Risk of Harm to Young Children in Institutional Care. The Save The Children Fund, London p2; Ariel Carroll (2015) Terms of Reference: Funding stream analysis of residential care Elevate Children Funders Group p2; Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p15; Unknown (2014) Ending the Institutionalisation of Children Globally – The Time Is Now Lumos Foundation p6
[2] https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45279.html
[3] Ariel Carroll (2015) Terms of Reference: Funding stream analysis of residential care Elevate Children Funders Group p2; Corinna Csaky (2009) Keeping Children out of Harmful Institutions. Why We Should Be Investing in Family Based Care The Save The Children Fund, London p12
[4]Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p15; Unicef (2010) At Home or in a Home? Formal care and adoption of children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Geneva, Switzerland p23
[5] Ariel Carroll (2015) Terms of Reference: Funding stream analysis of residential care Elevate Children Funders Group p2; Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p15; Unicef (2006) Alternative Care for Children without Primary Caregivers in Tsunami Affected Countries. Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, Thailand p29; John Williamson, Aaron Greenberg (2010) Families, Not Orphanages Better Care Network p7-8
[6] Corinna Csaky (2009) Keeping Children out of Harmful Institutions. Why We Should Be Investing in Family Based Care The Save The Children Fund, London p10, 14; Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p15; Georgette Mulheir, Mara Cavanagh (2016) Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children Lumos Foundation p8; Unicef (2010) At Home or in a Home? Formal care and adoption of children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Geneva, Switzerland p23;
[7] Corinna Csaky (2009) Keeping Children out of Harmful Institutions. Why We Should Be Investing in Family Based Care The Save The Children Fund, London p10, 14; Ghazal Kheshavarzian, Georgette Mulheir, Corinna Csaky (2015). In Our Lifetime. How Donors Can End the Institutionalisation of Children. Lumos, London p15
[1]Georgette Mulheir, Mara Cavanagh (2016) Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti’s Invisible Children Lumos Foundation p7; John Williamson, Aaron Greenberg (2010) Families, Not Orphanages Better Care Network p8