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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Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe: Romania summary brochure (English)

University of Nottingham, UK, 2012

This document is an English language summary brochure of the Manual of Best Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in Romania.

The Impact of Child Detention: Occupied Palestinian Territory

Save the Children Sweden & East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program, 2012

This report aims at giving an insight into the treatment of children in armed conflict, with a primary focus on children in detention.

Child Rights in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Keeping Families Together: Making social protection more effective for children

Peroline Ainsworth, Elena Gaia, Anna Nordenmark Severinsson, 2012

This edition of Insights produced by UNICEF summarizes the findings and recommendations of studies on the impact and outreach of social protection systems in Albania, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine where high rates of child placement in formal care still persist. The research offers important insight into the weaknesses and challenges faced by social protection systems in the region, but also point to ways in which policy-makers might maximise the impact of social protection systems in order to ‘keep families together’.

State of the World's Children 2012: Children in an Urban World

UNICEF, 2012

This report provides data on children living in urban settings, including statistics, conditions, and personal testimonies. The report also includes UNICEF’s recommendations for policy regarding children in urban settings, working with this population, and for future action. Sections that are relevant to children’s care include: children living and working on the streets, migrant children, urban emergencies, and many more.

A model for Early Years support work with families and children with additional needs in Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Rachel Tainsh & Jonathan Watkins - HealthProm, 2012

This report is the result 4 of a two-year EU funded project “An Early Years Support Centre (EYSC) service in Dushanbe: Reducing poverty, empowering vulnerable families, strengthening partnerships and advocating for rights”. It outlines the model of support that was developed through the EYSC project in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe: UK Summary Brochure

University of Nottingham, UK, 2012

This document is an English language summary brochure of the Manual of Best Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in the UK.

Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe: Slovakian Language Summary Brochure

University of Nottingham, UK, 31 Dec 2011

This document is a Slovakian language summary brochure of the Manual of Best Practice titled ‘Child Abandonment and its Prevention in Europe,’ specific to child abandonment in Slovakia.

Child poverty in cross-national perspective: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study

Janet C. Gornick & Markus Jäntti - Children and Youth Services Review, 17 Oct 2011

This paper draws on the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) microdata to paint a portrait of child poverty across a diverse group of countries, as of 2004–2006.

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Social protection and children in developing countries

Shirley Gatenio Gabel - Children and Youth Services Review, 14 Oct 2011

This paper looks at how social protection is evolving in developing countries and how it relates to the vulnerabilities of children. It goes on to present the different conceptual models for protection and how they have changed and been influenced by the changing definition of poverty and the growth in transnational knowledge and policymaking.

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From comparative to global social policy: Lessons for development practitioners from UNICEF's Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities

Gáspár Fajth, Sólrún Engilbertsdóttir, Sharmila Kurukulasuriya - Children and Youth Services Review, 14 Oct 2011

This paper attempts to look at the responsiveness of global social policy to addressing multidimensional child poverty, through the experience of UNICEF's Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities.

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