Better Care Network highlights recent news pieces related to the issue of children's care around the world. These pieces include newspaper articles, interviews, audio or video clips, campaign launches, and more.
When the Syrian regime fell in December, its secrets began to emerge from the rubble. One of its darkest secrets: the forced disappearance of hundreds of children. They were taken from their parents and secretly placed in orphanages, many under false identities. This Times investigation reveals the internal workings of the operation — and how one family fought to reunite.
This article explores how New York lawmakers have approved a bill that would bring greater transparency to “hidden foster care,” a practice where child welfare agencies pressure parents to place their children with relatives or others outside the formal foster care system, often without court oversight or access to legal protections.
This news article explores how U.S. first Lady Melania Trump penned a personal letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing the abduction of Ukrainian children amid the war, which President Trump then hand-delivered during their summit in Anchorage, Alaska.
This article explains how the Trump administration has renewed its attempt to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, a foundational policy dating back to the 1990s that mandates humane treatment and limits detention duration (to 72 hours) of migrant children held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
This article explores how the Association of Orphanages and Homes Operators in Nigeria (ASOHON) is urging both federal and state governments to prioritize budgeting for vulnerable children, emphasizing the importance of shifting from institutional care to family-based foster care.
A Guatemalan judge has found six people guilty over the deaths of 41 girls in a raging 2017 fire at a state shelter for vulnerable youths that had a history of abuse. The sentencing is a step towards closure in one of the most horrific and deadly events in Guatemalan history. The tragedy drew international attention and highlighted pervasive abuse in the government’s shelter system.
In this article, Howard Talenfeld, explores how the U.S. foster care system is failing to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of children it serves each year.
The Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince said the kidnapping of eight people from the Sainte-Hélène orphanage betrayed ‘the failure of the state and of a society that is losing its sensitivity to life’.
This statement by UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations Ted Chaiban notes how the rapid pace of returns to Afghanistan—peaking at over 50,000 arrivals in a single day—has overwhelmed fragile communities.
In the Solomon Islands, a whole-of-nation approach has been launched to tackle escalating child protection challenges through the Child and Family Welfare System Multi-Sectoral Implementation Plan (2025–2030).