Based on research undertaken in 2003, evidence indicated that an average of 110 new born babies were being abandoned in Khartoum every month. Half were estimated to die before receiving any assistance while those who survived abandonment were admitted to a state orphanage.
Social stigma attached to children born out of wedlock: while Islam positively values the care of orphaned and abandoned children by others, the legal recognition of the relationship between the orphaned child and their caregivers is based on the system of Kafala — the Islamic duty to save any abandoned child, and provide appropriate care and financial support for such children—which does not allow for inheritance or carrying the same family name of the caregiver. There is a notable stigma attached to children abandoned as a result of being born out of wedlock.
Institutional care versus growth and development: Data from the Maygoma orphanage in Khartoum clearly showed that institutional care was not in the best interests of the child. Lack of professional health staff, equipment and supplies led to high levels of mortality. Limited access to the outside world, and inadequate social interaction for children resulted in reduced development of children—in 2003, 86 per cent of children in Maygoma suffered from speech problems, 73 per cent from fine motor development problems, and all demonstrated gross motor development problems. Institutional care was also expensive— ten times higher that the average cost of alternative family care systems.
Potential for some form of adoption or fostering system existed: the researchers for the 2003 study spent time with families who had taken over the care of abandoned and orphaned children, through the principle of Kafala. This provided a precedent for family-based care systems that would reduce dependence upon the institutional care offered by orphanages such as Maygoma.
Against this background, UNICEF set out with its partners to examine the potential for an alternative to institutional care. This addressed two key issues:
a) how to provide an effective family-based alternative to child care
b) how to manage the stigma surrounding unmarried mothers and their offspring, which seemed to underline the huge level of abandonment.
The driving force behind the approach was the Alternative Family Care Task Force, established in 2002, and involving UNICEF, The Khartoum State Ministry of Social Affairs, the Khartoum Council for Child Welfare, MSF France and the NGO Hopes and Homes for Children. The Task Force established a number of stages to the development of an alternative family care policy.
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Stabilization of the conditions in Maygoma orphanage
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The design of acceptable alternative family care programmes
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Changes in attitudes, procedures and laws relating to abandonment of babies and children
