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 Way We Care: A Guide for Managers of Programs Serving Vulnerable Children and Youth

Family Health International, 19 Feb 2010

Manual aims to develop awareness, reinforce knowledge, and assist those designing, implementing, or managing programs for children and youth affected by poverty, HIV and AIDS, and other diseases.

U.S. Government and Partners: Working Together on a Comprehensive, Coordinated and Effective Response to Highly Vulnerable Children

USG Secretariat for Orphans and Vulnerable Children , 01 Dec 2009

Provides global estimates of the number of highly vulnerable children; a summary of United States Government (USG) assistance programs for highly vulnerable children; a summary of progress coordinating the response among USG agencies; key strategic issues and opportunities; priorities for 2009–2010 and beyond; and a summary of the results and achievements of USG assistance

Missing: Children without Parental Care in International Development Policy

EveryChild, 19 Nov 2009

Explores the negative impacts of loss of parental care on children. Advocates for reform for children based on assertion that failure to keep children in families, out of residential institutions and off the streets, will be another barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals

Every child deserves a family: EveryChild's approach to children without parental care

Emily Delap , 01 Nov 2009

This document outlines EveryChild’s approach to the growing problem of children without parental care by defining key concepts, analysing the nature and extent of the problem, exploring factors which place children at risk of losing parental care, and examining the impact of a loss of parental care on children’s rights.

Advancing Child Sensitive Social Protection

DFID, Help Age, Hope and Homes for Children, IDS, ILO, ODI, Save the Children UK, UNDP, UNICEF and World Bank., 01 Sep 2009

Joint statement among UN agencies and NGO partners to build greater consensus on the importance of child-sensitive social protection.

HIV/AIDS, declining family resources and the community safety net

Jody Heymann and Rachel Kidman - AIDS Care, 01 Aug 2009

This study uses recent data from published studies in sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate deficits and document community responses for children who have lost parents to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

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Analysis of the Progress and Remaining Challenges in Child Care System Reform: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan

UNICEF, Natalia Lyalina and Anna Nordenmark Severinsson, 21 May 2009

Developed by the UNICEF Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States as a discussion paper for the 2nd Child Protection Forum on Building and Reforming Child Care Systems

Forced Removal of Romani Children from the Care of their Families

European Roma Rights Center, 08 May 2009

Explores particular vulnerabilities that arise for Roma children and families in regards to care as a result of social marginalization

Promoting Synergies between Child Protection and Social Protection: West and Central Africa

UNICEF Regional Office for West and Central Africa, 01 Feb 2009

Focuses on children’s vulnerabilities and risks related to an absence of protection from violence, abuse and neglect, and the ways in which measures to address such vulnerabilities and risks can be more effectively integrated into social protection policy frameworks in the West and Central Africa region.

Home Truths: Facing the Facts on Children, AIDS, and Poverty

Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS, 01 Feb 2009

Evaluates a number of fundamental misperceptions that have undermined the global response to children affected by the epidemic, and sets out evidence on how to better respond to their needs.