The primary objective of this study was to present a national picture of the existing division of responsibilities regarding decision-making and service production as well as the financial flow and expenditures in connection with institutional care for children deprived of family care. The study combined a protective-environment approach and a rights-based framework in order to initiate a dialogue on policy for the purpose of further developing alternatives for institutional care in Tajikistan.
As this and many other international studies show, the institutional care of children is costly, not sustainable and not beneficial for the healthy development of children. However, as indicated in this study, children’s institutions continue to be established in the Republic of Tajikistan in response to increased family poverty. Of course, other factors such as divorce and illness also play an important role for the increase in the rate of institutionalisation. Institutionalisation is also bound up with the fact that some babies are born are unwanted, and that people lack the knowledge and ability to engage in family planning. Of course, institutions should not be in any way a response to family poverty. Reducing poverty, providing adequate and accessible health care, education and income-generating opportunities are factors that affect families and have an impact on the number of children who are abandoned, run away from home or are placed in institutions. In addition, an active gender equality policy, for instance an active policy for raising the employment rate of women and facilitating the education of young girls at different levels as well as legislation for protecting women’s rights in case of divorce are needed to raise the status of women in the country.
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