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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The National Alternative Care Policy for Children in Sri Lanka

Ministry of Woman and Child Affairs and Dry Zone Development Department of Probation and Child Care Services, 2019

Sri Lanka's National Policy on the Alternative Care of Children outlines a comprehensive range of alternative care options and encourages the reforming of all formal structures that provide at-home and out-of-home services for children deprived of care and protection or at risk of being so. This policy also extends to children under care of the Juvenile Justice System. It provides policy solutions to programming for children at risk of family separation and facing deprivations such as child abuse, neglect, child labor, poverty, addiction, imprisonment, human trafficking, mental and physical disabilities, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, orphanhood, abandonment and displacement etc. The policy also takes into consideration and encompasses provisions to children who are forced to live and work on streets.

Culturally attuned ways to address government over-involvement in the care of Indigenous children

University of Victoria, 2019

This snapshot provides a brief overview of research examining culturally attuned ways to assess risk so that Indigenous children in Australia can be safely supported.

Punishing Families for Being Poor: How Child Protection Interventions Threaten the Right to Parent While Impoverished

David Pimentel - Oklahoma Law Review, 2019

This article from the Oklahoma Law Review explores the US child welfare system and the practice of family separation of poor families.

Successful Models for Recruitment and Retention of African American Adoptive Families

Kathleen Belanger, Ruth Mcroy, Joe Haynes - The Future of Adoption: Beyond Safety to Well-Being, 2019

This paper describes two successful models in which African American families both self-recruited, and were recruited by agencies seeking to place African American children.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Foster care from the perspective of Roma foster parents in Roma settlements in Međimurje county

Mateja Krčar & Maja Laklija - Criminology & Social Integration, 05 Nov 2018

The aim of this research was to gain an insight into experiences of Roma foster parents with providing foster care in Roma settlements in Croatia.