Around the world, millions of children are growing up in orphanages, or children's homes as they are called in many places. But research has shown that the vast majority of them, actually have families.

This article presents a conceptual model for identifying clientelist relationships in orphanages, allowing for the implications of clientelism for child institutionalisation, trafficking, and exploitation to be explored.

This article uses the lens of childhood history to shed light on some of the intricacies of the attempts to regulate child labor in Iran and to analyze Western observers’ views on this issue.

This advocacy brief provides an overview of promising practices and lessons learned to end child immigration detention in the U.S. and sets out a range of policy actions needed to scale up efforts to end this form of violence.

<< Back to ReThink Orphanages Home

This research brief summarizes what is already known about child marriage and early unions (CMEUs) in the Caribbean, complemented by the findings of research commissioned by UNICEF in the framework of the Spotlight Initiative Caribbean Regional Programme and conducted in six Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

This book review is written by Elizabeth Faulkner of author Kate Kathryn E.

This article outlines differing perspectives on orphanage tourism and volunteering from the last decade of research. It examines the contexts in which orphanage tourism occurs and outlines the drivers for this form of tourism. In addition, it discusses the implications of orphanage tourism for children including impacts on child agency, child rights, child development, child protection, and child trafficking and exploitation.

This resolution on orphanage trafficking was adopted by consensus at the 147th IPU Assembly and endorsed by 180 parliaments.

This thematic brief contains guidance on key policy measures and concrete steps that may assist with the development and implementation of a whole-of-government strategy to eliminate orphanage tourism and voluntourism and to combat orphanage trafficking. It includes recommendations relevant to volunteer-sending and volunteer-receiving countries. In addition, it contains practical examples of effective measures from a diverse range of countries sending and receiving volunteers.