Children with Disabilities

A disability includes a physical impairment such as mobility, hearing, visual, and language difficulties, and developmental delays which affect a person’s behaviour, emotional expression, and learning abilities. It includes mild to severe disabilities, from cerebral palsy, paralysis and amputation, to blindness, deafness, autism, and dyslexia. Children may be born with an impairment, or develop one as a result of disease, abuse, or an injury, e.g. many children are the victims of shootings, bombings, and explosions in conflict affected areas.

The degree of disability a person experiences is frequently related to society’s adaptation to meet the needs of people with varying abilities. This is known as the social model of disability which highlights the role of the environment in reducing or increasing the ability of individuals to participate equally in everyday life. For example, a person in a wheelchair has the impairment of not being able to walk. The disability, however, may be that he cannot take up services due to a lack of building access. Protection workers must consider any additional needs or risk factors a person may have as a result of his impairment and disability. Children in developing countries are more vulnerable to disability since poverty and conflicts increase the incidence of impairments, and reduce the provision of necessary health, education, social services, and adaptive provisions to help include children of all abilities.

Children with impairments or special needs are highly vulnerable to discrimination, abandonment, abuse, exploitation, injury and death, since they are more reliant on the cooperation and support of others to meet their basic needs, and may be less able to express their wishes. In some cultures, children with special needs are actively excluded from participating in society since they may be viewed as a source of shame, or unworthy of care and protection.

Government policies should seek to reduce the incidence of injuries and diseases via adequate health care, including education, immunizations, nutrition, and sanitation. All programming and policies for children should promote the social inclusion of children with disabilities at every level. Children should benefit from the reduction of physical and social barriers, adaptation of services and/or rehabilitation assistance in order to enable them to participate as fully as possible in their communities. This includes family support, health facilities, access to education, and respite services to enable children to fulfill their potential. Children of all abilities must be empowered to express their views and to influence their own lives.

The resources in this section focus on children with disabilities in developing countries, and those affected by conflict. They highlight their vulnerability to exclusion and abuse, and provide examples of projects to address the needs of children with special needs.

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South Africa's Progress in Realising Children's Rights: A Law Review

Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, and Save the Children, 2014

This book focuses on, and reviews, a selection of laws related to the rights of children in South Africa.

Models of care for orphaned and separated children and upholding children’s rights: cross-sectional evidence from western Kenya

Lonnie Embleton, David Ayuku, Allan Kamanda, Lukoye Atwoli, Samuel Ayaya, Rachel Vreeman, Winstone Nyandiko, Peter Gisore, Julius Koech and Paula Braitstein, 2014

The authors of this article applied a human rights framework using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understand what extent children’s basic human rights were being upheld in institutional vs. community- or family-based care settings in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya.

Abandoned by the State: Violence, Neglect, and Isolation for Children with Disabilities in Russian Orphanages

Human Rights Watch , 2014

This Human Rights Watch report gives a detailed overview of the situation faced by children with disabilities in orphanages in Russia.

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Assessment of Community-and Family-Based Alternative Child-Care Services in Ethiopia

Getnet Tadele, Desta Ayode, Woldekidan Kifle, 28 Dec 2013

This assessment conducted by FHI 360, with support from Ethiopia's Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs (MoWYCA) and the OAK Foundation aimed to generate evidence about formal community and family- based alternative child care services and service providing agencies in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on magnitude, quality and quality-assurance mechanisms.

Ending harmful institutions for children in Georgia

Save the Children, 19 Dec 2013

This video by Save the Children highlights the major reforms ongoing in Georgia to end harmful child institutionalisation and the work of its project to support the Government in this reform process.

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Natia's Story: Early Childhood Intervention in Georgia

Open Society Foundations, 16 Dec 2013

A short case study by the Open Society Foundations on preventing the separation of children with disabilities from their families.

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Caring for orphaned children in China

Xiaoyuan Shang and Karen R. Fisher, 14 Dec 2013

This book by Dr. Xiaoyuan Shang and Karen Fisher provides a comprehensive and clear picture of the situation of children who are orphaned or abandoned in China. It introduces the context and framework for the alternative care system and China’s welfare system as it applies to children, and provides a profile of orphans and of care arrangements, describing both the formal child welfare system and the informal care system, particularly kinship care.

Evaluation of the Implementation of the National Strategy and Action Plan for the Reform of the Residential Childcare System in Moldova 2007-2012

Peter Evans, 04 Dec 2013

The Government of the Republic of Moldova launched its childcare reforms in 2006 aiming to establish a network of community social assistants, develop family support services and alternative family placement services, and reorganise residential childcare institutions. This evaluation reviews the implementation of the National Strategy and Action Plan for the Reform of the Residential Childcare System 2007–2012 approved by the Government of the Republic of Moldova in July 2007.

Study on Deinstitutionalization of Children and Adults with Disabilities in Europe and Eurasia

The European Network on Independent Living for JBS International, Inc. - USAID , 01 Dec 2013

This report from USAID, prepared by the European Network on Independent Living, features the findings from a study on why little progress has been made to end the institutionalization of people with disabilities in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

Left Behind: The Exclusion of Children and Adults with Disabilities from Reform and Rights Protection in the Republic of Georgia

Eric Mathews, Laurie Ahern, Eric Rosenthal, James Conroy, Lawrence C. Kaplan, Robert M. Levy, Karen Green McGowan, 01 Dec 2013

This hard-hitting report by Disability Rights International is the product of a 3-year investigation into the orphanages, adult social care homes and other institutions that house children and adults with disabilities in the Republic of Georgia. It finds that although the Government of Georgia has undertaken an ambitious child care reform process over the last decade, institutionalized children with disabilities were largely excluded from this reform process.