This report documents the work conducted by Save the Children in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs over a period of 7 years to strengthen the national child protection system and change the underlying paradigm for that system away from over-reliance on residential care and towards child and family centered responses.

This report summarizes the findings of a study on parental and alternative childcare in Luang Prabang and Xayabury provinces in Northern Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

This article in the Guardian reports on a new bill passed by parliamentarians in Iran that includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years. According to the article, activists and experts inside and outside of Iran have expressed their alarm at the proposal.

This Country Care Review includes the care-related concluding observations on the third and fourth periodic reports of Uzbekistan, adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its sixty-third session (27 May–14 June 2013), as well as other care-related concluding observations, ratification dates, and links to the Universal Periodic Review and Hague Intercountry Adoption Country Profile.

In her annual report to the UN General Assembly, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General highlights the results of an expert consultation on violence in early childhood. The consultation highlighted the urgency of supporting families and caregivers in their child-rearing responsibilities and securing a responsive national child protection system to strengthen families’ capacity to raise young children in safe environments and prevent child abandonment and placement in residential care.

Two baby girls were given over to new adoptive parents live on a television program in Pakistan. The host claims that the babies were not given away as a ploy for ratings, but to unite children in need of a home with new parents looking to welcome them.

In his blog post, Harold Goodwin explains how learning about the unintended negative impacts of orphanage volunteering and how the decision was made to remove orphanage volunteering trips from responsibletravel.com’ offerings.

India submitted its third and fourth combined report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

For children separated from their families, the 139 organizations of the South Asia Alliance of Grassroots NGOs (SAAGN) launched the campaign “My Caring Family is My First Right” in June 2013. As part of the campaign, Butterflies, a registered voluntary organization working with street and working children in Delhi, is supporting a new online petition that calls on governments in the region to respect a child’s right to a family.

The main aims of this assessment were to identify and address problems in both the domestic and intercountry adoption processes, with a view to assisting Viet Nam in its preparations to accede to the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (THC-93); and to review the new draft law on adoption, and propose any amendments that may appear necessary to ensure compliance with international standards and good practice.