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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Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti's Invisible Children

Georgette Mulheir and Mara Cavanagh - Lumos, 01 Nov 2016

According to this report from Lumos, of the estimated 32,000 children who live in orphanages in Haiti, only 20 are percent orphans.

Making parents pay: The unintended consequences of charging parents for foster care

Maria Cancian, Steven T. Cook, Mai Seki and Lynn Wimer - Children and Youth Services Review, 12 Oct 2016

This study examines whether requiring parents to pay child support to offset the costs of foster care delays children's permanent placement, whether through reunification with a parent, adoption, or guardianship.

Combatting dependency and promoting child protection in Rwanda

Saeed Rahman, Simran Chaudhri, Lindsay Stark and Mark Canaver -- Forced Migration Review, 01 Oct 2016

According to this article from Forced Migration Review, when the majority of aid comes from external sources, it can cause those who receive the aid to feel powerless.

In Uganda, Fostering a World without Adoption

Kathryn Joyce - Medium, 06 Sep 2016

Kathryn Joyce discusses the issues that one mother in Uganda faced when she put her child up for international adoption.

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Communication, indigenous culture and participatory decision making amongst foster adolescents

Ulene Schiller & Gideon de Wet - Qualitative Social Work, 30 Aug 2016

This paper analyses the experiences of adolescents in foster care placement with specific reference to participatory decision making in an indigenous African cultural context in South Africa.

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Anxiety, happiness and self-esteem of western Chinese left-behind children

Qian Dai & Rong-Xuan Chu - Child Abuse & Neglect, 24 Aug 2016

This article describes a study in which researchers explored the emotional and psychological health of China's left-behind children (LBC) by identifiying the differences in levels of happiness, self-esteem and anxiety between LBC and non-LBC.

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Children on the move, children left behind: Uprooted or trapped by Boko Haram

UNICEF, 01 Aug 2016

This article discusses the major population displacement that unfolded in Africa’s Lake Chad Basin.

Reaching and Investing in Children at the Margins: Workshop Summary

Rapporteur; Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally; Board on Global Health; Board on Children, Youth, & Families; Health & Medicine Division; Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences & Education; National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine, 20 Jun 2016

To examine the science, economics, and politics of investing in the health, education, nutrition, and social protection of children at the margins, the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally (iYCG Forum) held a workshop in Prague, Czech Republic, on November 3–4, 2015, titled, “Reaching and Investing in Children at the Margins.” This report summarizes the workshop and highlights the key learning from the event.

Childhood Poverty and Cognitive Development in Latin America in the 21st Century

M. Soledad Segretin1,2, M. Julia Hermida3, Lucía M. Prats, Carolina S. Fracchia, Eliana Ruetti, and Sebastián J. Lipina - New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 02 Jun 2016

The aim of the present paper is to systematically review the empirical studies that have analyzed the associations between poverty and cognitive development in children under 18 years of age from Latin American and Caribbean countries between 2000 and 2015.

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The State of the World’s Children 2016: A fair chance for every child

UNICEF, 01 Jun 2016

This report from UNICEF discusses the state of world’s children and points out that when it comes to the development and survival of children, odds are stacked against those from the poorest and most disadvantaged households.