On October 23, 2025, the Transforming Children’s Care Collaborative hosted a webinar exploring Kafaalah—a long-standing childcare practice in Muslim communities that has been observed for more than 1,400 years.

The Byline Times article “The Stolen Children Scandal in Syria Exposes a Deeper Problem in SOS Care” by Dr. Justin Rogers exposes serious allegations that the Syrian regime, under Bashar al-Assad, has been using orphanages—including some run by the global NGO SOS Children’s Villages—to hide children who were taken from detainees or regime critics.

This article from the Guardian discusses the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza where thousands of children have lost one or both parents amid war, and many are severely wounded and without any surviving family.

In this news video, Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Khan Younis, Palestine. The toll of the ongoing conflict in Gaza is laid bare through the stories of orphaned children and grieving families.

BBC Eye Investigations follows the journey of Reem al-Kari to find her son Karim Turjman - one of 3,700 children who went missing during Syria’s civil war from 2011 to 2024.

A new investigation by Lighthouse Reports, with a coalition of six Syrian and international media, reveals how a major EU and UK-funded childcare charity, SOS Children’s Villages, held children in orphanages to extort their parents. 

In this news article, the BBC explores how hundreds of children of Syria’s political detainees were taken from their families during the Assad regime and placed in orphanages, many run by SOS Children’s Villages International.

This study explores the experiences of Palestinian parents in East Jerusalem whose young children were removed from their homes due to verified maltreatment, highlighting the disruption to their parental roles and the added challenges of legal, political, and geographic barriers. Findings show how parents cope with separation, from acceptance to viewing it as temporary, and call for policies and interventions that address the intersecting socio-political and legal complexities shaping their lives.

This piece examines persistent gaps in Egypt’s Kafala system for children deprived of parental care, highlighting the lack of disaggregated data on children, foster families, and care homes.

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.