She is desperate to live in a family again. Despite years of scientific research showing how orphanages damage children, an estimated 8 million children worldwide are still confined to loveless institutions.
It is a global crisis. Some families struggle to cope, whether it is in finding work, feeding their children or paying for school fees. Many experience housing challenges, or live with mental health problems or social exclusion. Some families are coping with disability and other special needs. Breakdowns in relationships, and alcohol and drug abuse are also common.
The lack of preventative and alternative family and community-based care services means that social workers readily refer children into orphanages. This is compounded by the lack of training and support of social workers themselves to help them develop alternatives for children. They are often reluctant to place children back with their families or to develop alternative family and community-based care arrangements because they do not have the skills or adequate support to provide them.
So orphanages are often used as a convenient first resort, instead of being a last resort, as required by the UN Guidelines on Alternative Care.
But orphanages are neither safe nor convenient for children. Am I Eligible to Adopt? Site Developed by 5by5 - A Change Agency. Poverty can also create a fragility in social structures, often leading to the breakdown of family units—not due to a lack of love and commitment but rather a sheer lack of resources to meet the most basic human needs.
Civil Unrest: Wars and violence lead to civil unrest, causing many children to lose one or both parents. Not only are parents lost, but child welfare systems are often compromised, leading to unregulated adoptions, abduction, or trafficking of children. Posted in Featured , Get Involved , Resources and tagged adoption , adoption aid , causes , get involved , orphan crisis , the need.
Related Stories Featured. In most cases, education is sacrificed first. Orphans must meet not only their own needs but often those of younger siblings in their care. Orphans are rarely primarily concerned with their own health, above simple food and shelter. Yet their living conditions and daily activities are highly dangerous to their health , with the risk of street fights, drugs, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, malnutrition , and poor working conditions.
Some orphans look for a job to escape their dire situations. All too often, they are exploited through all kinds of degrading and dangerous work. The International Labour Organization reports that more orphans work in commercial agriculture, as street vendors and housekeepers, and in the sex industry, than other children.
In the absence of a temporary or permanent family, the Convention on the Rights of the Child CRC advocates for States to provide assistance and special protection to orphans. This system does not create familial bonds between the family and the orphaned child. International adoption provides another alternative to maintain the proper balance of children in the world.
The Hague Convention of proposed guidelines based on the protection of children and international cooperation, allowing an orphan to be legally placed with a family. Many conditions must be met in order to protect the interests of the child.
This transparent process helps to avoid the spread of child trafficking. Still, it is difficult to rely on international adoption in many situations, especially when children have been separated from their family because of war or natural disasters.
Prevention and screening campaigns are needed to reach this goal, as well as guaranteed access to treatment. Advocate for the protection of child rights by calling for an end to fires and deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest!
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