In this chapter from Residential Child and Youth Care in a Developing World: Global Perspectives, First Edition Faizah Haji Mas’ud discusses the state of residential care in Malaysia.  Mas’ud covers Malaysia and welfare policy, types of children’s services, as well as challenges and issues Malaysia faces in providing residential care to children.

This booklet is based on a recent internal desk review of Save the Children’s and partners’ work against physical and humiliating punishment of children, commissioned by Save the Children Sweden. It aims to present best practices, to show what methods have worked around the world, and to spread knowledge about results achieved and lessons learned when it comes to law reform and positive discipline.  

Kinnected is a program run in 10 countries by the organization ACCI Relief aimed at preserving and strengthening families and assisting children currently in residential care to achieve their right to be raised in a family. This report describes Kinnected’s programs and initiatives underway in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Lesotho and includes some individual case studies.

This year’s report on Global Slavery makes reference to orphanage tourism in the context of Cambodia. 

President Aquino of the Philippines has recently signed into law the “Children’s Emergency Relief and Protection Act,” an Act which ensures the protection of children “in times of calamity, disaster, and other emergency situations.”

This short video by ChildSafe in Cambodia explains how donations to orphanages, rather than helping the situation, often cause the creation of more orphans. It is estimated that about 80% of the 8 million children living in institutions around the world are not actually orphans. Donations to orphanages only fuel the orphanage industry further, so the focus should instead be on supporting families.

Tara Winkler, a former NSW Young Australian of the Year, warns against the dangers of allowing foreign volunteers into orphanages. Ms Winkler says potential abusers are not being vetted among a high volume of visitors to Cambodia's 600 orphan

The article details the abuse that is common among Malaysia's indigenous children in residential school settings. 

In Cambodia's booming orphanage industry, children have become money-making tourist attractions, and it is suspected that sexual abuse is common in residential centres where there are few checks to identify child abusers among foreign volunteers.

Published jointly with UNICEF, this new BCN Working Paper focuses on the role of gatekeeping in strengthening family-based care and reforming alternative care systems. This Working Paper reviews different approaches to gatekeeping in five countries--Brazil, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Moldova, and Rwanda--to consider what has and has not worked, to analyze lessons learned from practice, and to reflect on the implications for improving policy and programs in this area.