Children Affected by Poverty and Social Exclusion

Around the world, poverty and social exclusion are driving factors behind the placement of children into alternative care. Families give up their children because they are too poor to care for them, or they feel that it is the best way to help them to access basic services such as education and health care. Discrimination and cultural taboos mean that girls, children with disabilities, ethnic minorities, children with HIV/AIDS and children born out of wedlock, make up a disproportionate number of children abandoned into alternative care.

Poor-quality alternative care leads to a vicious cycle of poverty and inequality. With limited family-based alternative care options in many countries, children often end up in institutional care. Already marginalized by poverty or stigmatization, they risk becoming further excluded from society, as they grow up separated from their families and communities. In the worst cases, inadequate or unsafe care standards expose them to neglect, violence and abuse. When they eventually leave institutional care, young adults may then struggle to reintegrate into their communities and face high rates of homelessness, unemployment, chronic poverty, depression and even suicide.

Greater political and financial commitment is needed to tackle the poverty and social exclusion that drives families to give up their children. This includes wide-ranging measures to combat poverty, discrimination and stigmatization, to change attitudes towards single parenthood and disability, and to adopt social policies promoting family empowerment and parenting skills. Greater priority must also be given to developing good-quality family-based care options, such as foster care and adoption, for the girls and boys who need alternative families.

The documents in this section examine the relationship between poverty, social exclusion and placement of children in alternative care.

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Pathway to Permanency: Enact a State Statute Formally Recognizing Indian Custodianship as an Approved Path to Ending a Child in Need of Aid Case

Courtney Lewis - Alaska Law Review, 2019

This article argues that the US state of Alaska should enact a state statute to provide clear guidance to state child welfare practitioners and state courts that Alaska’s state government recognizes an Indian custodianship created through Tribal law or custom as a pathway for Indian children to exit the overburdened state foster care system.

India's Children Continue to Challenge our Conscience

Enakshi Ganguly - HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, 2019

This report, which is also the fifth in the series, reflects on how children and the realisation of their rights continue to challenge our conscience even today.

Study on the Feasibility of a Child Guarantee for Vulnerable Children: Inception Report

European Commission, 2019

This report - prepared for the European Commission by Applica and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), in close collaboration with Eurochild and Save the Children - provides a first mapping of the situation across the 28 Member States of the EU outlining the situation in relation to children, particularly the four target groups (TGs) of disadvantaged children (children in institutions, children with disabilities, children of recent migrants and refugees, and children living in precarious family situations) as well as an indication of the key issues in relation to children’s access to the five policy areas (PAs): housing, healthcare, nutrition, early childhood education and care, and education.

Family Is Culture: Independent Review of Aboriginal Children and Young People in OOHC

Independent Review of Aboriginal Children in OOHC Team, 2019

This Review is aimed at examining the high rates of Aboriginal children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia and the implementation of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle (ACPP) in this jurisdiction.

Poverty as the Main Motive for Abandonment of Children

Cvetelina Berberova-Valcheva - Великотърновски университет „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”, 2019

The purpose of this article is to examine the current well-being of the population of Bulgaria and to put emphasis on negative trends, including the abandonment of children due to poverty or other causes.

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Socioeconomic Resource Environments in Biological and Alternative Family Care and Children's Cognitive Performance

Sarah Font & Marina H. Potter - Sociological Inquiry, 07 Dec 2018

The authors of this article examined social and economic resources in the environments of children involved with child protective services and their associations with children's cognitive performance.

Khmer Language Version: Child Protection and Education Needs for the Children and Adolescents of Phnom Penh’s Urban Poor Communities

UNICEF Cambodia, 01 Dec 2018

This study examines child protection risks faced by preschool age children (3-5 years old) and adolescents (10-14 years old) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and determines the interconnectivity between such risks and education.

Child Protection and Education Needs for the Children and Adolescents of Phnom Penh’s Urban Poor Communities

UNICEF Cambodia, 01 Dec 2018

The Family Matters Report 2018

SNAICC – National Voice for our Children, 20 Nov 2018

Family Matters reports set out what governments are doing to turn the tide on the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out of-home care, and the outcomes for children and their families.

Income poverty, unemployment and social grants

Katharine Hall and Winnie Sambu - South African Child Gauge 2018, 20 Nov 2018

This chapter from the South African Child Gauge 2018 provides an overview of children living in poverty in South Africa, highlighting those living in households without an employed adult.