A UK firm that hosts “ethically-minded” tours has recently dropped 10 itineraries from the tours it offers due to “ethical reasons,” according to the article. These tours, which offered participants opportunities to volunteer in orphanages, are being shut down because the firm believes that “orphanage volunteers, despite their best intentions, are part of the problem rather than the solution for children living in poverty throughout the world," according to Sarah Bareham, the firm's marketing assistant. Despite overwhelming evidence from UNICEF of the detrimental effects of institutionalization on children, says the author, the number of orphanages has increased in many regions. These increases have often occurred alongside booms in tourism which suggests that “well-meaning” volunteers may be contributing to the problem, rather than encouraging the search for alternative solutions.
The practices of many of these orphanages are often troubling. One orphanage in Cambodia reportedly parades its children through the streets at night holding placards reading “help our orphans.” This is one of 35 orphanages in a town of only 100,000 people. A UN report indicates that 140 of 148 orphanages in Ghana operate without a license. Throughout the developing world, it has been uncovered that many children who are placed in orphanages have at least one living parent and that the orphanages they are placed in are often reliant on overseas donors and tourist funding. The article suggests that, rather than providing much help to children, orphanage volunteers are often perpetuating a “never-ending cycle of abandonment.”