tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/orphanages-15116/articlesOrphanages – The Conversation2023-11-14T13:26:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2119952023-11-14T13:26:24Z2023-11-14T13:26:24ZMusic painted on the wall of a Venetian orphanage will be heard again nearly 250 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557160/original/file-20231101-23-zmwffr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C3024%2C2240&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The music room of the Ospedaletto is known for its remarkable acoustics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine Lady Gaga or Elton John teaching at an orphanage or homeless shelter, offering daily music lessons. </p>
<p>That’s what took place at Venice’s four <a href="https://imagesofvenice.com/ospedali-grandi/">Ospedali Grandi</a>, which were charitable institutions that took in the needy – including orphaned and foundling girls – from the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century. Remarkably, all four Ospedali hired some of the greatest musicians and composers of the time, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Vivaldi">Antonio Vivaldi</a> and <a href="https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/composerofthemonth">Nicola Porpora</a>, to provide the young women – known as the “putte” – with a superb music education.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2019, while in Venice on a research trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Derelitti, more commonly known as the Ospedaletto, or “Little Hospital,” because it was the smallest of the four Ospedali Grandi. </p>
<p>As a musicologist <a href="https://arts.psu.edu/faculty/marica-tacconi/">specializing in the music of early modern Venice</a>, I was especially excited to visit one of the hidden gems of the city: the <a href="https://www.gioiellinascostidivenezia.it/en/the-jewels/complesso-dell-ospedaletto/">Ospedaletto’s music room</a>, which was built in the mid-1770s.</p>
<p>I had heard about its beauty and perfect acoustics. So when a colleague and friend, classical singer <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/liesl-odenweller/">Liesl Odenweller</a>, suggested we go together, I was delighted. I also secretly hoped Liesl would feel inclined to sing in the space, so I could experience the pure acoustics of the room. </p>
<p>Little did I know that I would encounter music that hasn’t been performed in nearly 250 years.</p>
<h2>Clues on the walls</h2>
<p>As we entered the stunning music room, I was immediately struck by its elegance and relatively small size. In my mind, I had envisioned a large concert hall; instead, the space is intimate, ellipse-shaped and richly decorated.</p>
<p>Overshadowed by <a href="https://www.exploreclassicalmusic.com/vivaldi-and-the-ospedale-della-piet">the more prominent Ospedale della Pietà</a>, not much is known about the music-making that took place for centuries behind the walls of the Ospedaletto. But one of the greatest clues to its venerable history as a music school is literally on one of its walls. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Colorful painting of women performing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacopo Guarana’s fresco ‘Concert of the Putte’ (1776-77).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S.Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A fresco on the far wall of the room, <a href="https://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/ospedaletto-sala-musica-favaro-tiziana/libro/9788885087071">painted in 1776-77 by Jacopo Guarana</a>, depicts a group of female musicians – likely portraits of some of the putte – at the feet of <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/apollo/">Apollo</a>, the Greek god of music. Some of them play string instruments; one, gazing toward the viewer, holds a page of sheet music.</p>
<p>Call it a professional quirk, but when I see a music score depicted in a painting, I have to get up close and try to read it. In this case, I was lucky: The music notation was quite legible, and the composer’s name was inscribed in the upper-right corner: “Sig. Anfossi.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up of a painting of a sheet of music." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The musical score depicted in Jacopo Guarana’s fresco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>I took several photos of the fresco. I wanted to learn as much as I could about that piece of music painted on the wall.</p>
<p>The sound of Liesl’s singing snapped me out of my music detective mode. As I had hoped, her beautiful soprano voice filled the space with a tone so pure that it sounded almost ethereal. I turned around, but my friend was no longer in the room. Where was her singing coming from? </p>
<p>Liesl, it turns out, was perched in the singing gallery. With the permission of a clerk, she had climbed up to this partially hidden loft and was singing through a grille. It was here that the putte of the Ospedaletto performed in public concerts, their features partially obscured from the prying glances of the male listeners below.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Silhouette of woman singing from behind a cage above a grand room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Liesl Odenweller sings from the gallery of the Ospedaletto’s music room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Women rally behind their beloved institution</h2>
<p>Armed with those clues on the wall, I continued my research in the days following the visit to the Ospedaletto. I learned that the music by “Signor Anfossi” shown in the fresco was drawn from the opera “Antigono,” composed by <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095412866">Pasquale Anfossi</a> (1727-97) on a libretto by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pietro-Metastasio">Pietro Metastasio</a>. The work premiered in Venice at the <a href="https://www.artnet.com/artists/francesco-guardi/the-interior-of-the-teatro-san-benedetto-venice-1UqjxTVRZT2LyYjJdQa0cg2">Teatro San Benedetto</a> in 1773.</p>
<p>The text of the solo song – known in opera <a href="https://www.operacolorado.org/blog/opera-explained-what-is-an-aria/">as an aria</a> – is legible in the excerpt on the wall. It reads, “Contro il destin che freme, combatteremo insieme” – “Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together.” </p>
<p>Like many works from the 17th and 18th centuries, the entire opera is lost. I was determined to find out, however, if that particular aria had survived. Sometimes, the “hit tunes” of an opera were copied or printed separately and performed as “arie staccate” – arias that were “detached” from the rest of the work. </p>
<p>Luck was on my side: To my delight, I found <a href="https://www.internetculturale.it/jmms/iccuviewer/iccu.jsp?id=oai%3Awww.internetculturale.sbn.it%2FTeca%3A20%3ANT0000%3AFR0084-01A07_04d&mode=all&teca=MagTeca+-+ICCU">a copy of the aria in a library in Montecassino</a>, a small town southeast of Rome. Why was that particular excerpt chosen to be displayed so prominently on the wall? </p>
<p>Like other institutions in Venice, the Ospedaletto faced financial hardship in the 1770s. Evidence suggests that <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nel_regno_dei_poveri/ojgtAQAAIAAJ?hl=en">the putte of the Ospedaletto were likely involved in raising the funds</a> for the decoration of the music room. The new hall enabled them to give performances for special guests and benefactors, which brought in substantial donations. Together with Pasquale Anfossi, who was their music teacher from 1773 to 1777, they rallied behind their beloved institution, saving it – at least temporarily – from financial destitution. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two girls, one holding music, the other depicted in a side profile, and a man holding sheets of music gazing down at them from behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Italian composer Pasquale Anfossi, holding rolled up sheets of music, makes an appearance in the fresco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together” may well have served as a rallying cry for the putte of the Ospedaletto, who literally “battled together” to preserve their splendid music conservatory.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the putte may also have wanted to honor their teacher, as Pasquale Anfossi, too, is portrayed in Guarana’s fresco, directly behind the young woman holding up his music. </p>
<h2>From wall to concert hall</h2>
<p>One of the aspects I find most rewarding about the study of older music is the process of discovering a work that has been neglected and unheard for hundreds of years and bringing it back to modern audiences.</p>
<p>Inspired by the Ospedaletto’s music room, Liesl Odenweller and I have embarked on a collaborative project that brings back not only the aria on the wall but also other music from the institution that has gone unheard for centuries. Thanks to a generous grant from the <a href="https://www.delmas.org/grantees-venetian-program">Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation</a>, the <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/">Venice Music Project</a> – the ensemble Liesl co-founded in 2013 – will perform this music in a <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/concert/hidden-treasures-of-the-ospedaletto/">concert in Venice on Dec. 2, 2023</a>.</p>
<p>Our program will include “Contro il destin” as well as other excerpts from “Antigono” – essentially, all that survives from that opera. In addition, we will include works by Tommaso Traetta (1727-79) and Antonio Sacchini (1730-86) who, like Anfossi, taught the young women, in some cases launching their international music careers.</p>
<p>Because the music of the past was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/musical-notation/Evolution-of-Western-staff-notation">written in a notation</a> that’s different from that used today, it’s necessary to translate and input every mark of the original score – notes, dynamics and other expressive marks – into a music notation software to produce a modern score that can be easily read by today’s musicians.</p>
<p>By performing on period instruments and using a historically informed approach, the musicians of the Venice Music Project and I are excited to revive this remarkably beautiful and meaningful music. Its neglect is certainly not a reflection of its artistic quality but rather likely the result of other composers, such as Vivaldi and Mozart, taking over the spotlight and overshadowing the works of other masters. </p>
<p>This music deserves to be heard – as does the story of the young women of the Ospedaletto.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This project received funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.</span></em></p>On the wall of an orphanage in Venice, a musicologist encountered a fresco featuring an aria written for an opera. She’s since embarked on a project to bring this forgotten music back.Marica S. Tacconi, Distinguished Professor of Musicology and Art History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055422023-06-05T10:31:53Z2023-06-05T10:31:53ZUganda’s Ghetto Kids make Britain’s Got Talent history – here’s the reality of ‘orphanages’ around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529544/original/file-20230601-29-s4iyf1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C14%2C1196%2C599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KreP6Xwan7E">Screen grab/Britain's Got Talent on YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A group of talented young dancers from Uganda warmed hearts around the world after earning the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRAyQ77jVBg">coveted “golden buzzer”</a> on Britain’s Got Talent. The Ghetto Kids are a dance troupe of children between the ages of five and 13 growing up in a child care institution in Uganda. Putting on electrifying performances that showed off their personalities and impressive choreography, the children made it to the final. </p>
<p>The attention on Ghetto Kids presents a chance to acknowledge the lived realities of approximately <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/deinstitutionalisation">5.4 million children worldwide</a> growing up in institutional care. For many of these children, there are deeply troubling reasons for their entry into care, and many have challenging childhoods away from their families.</p>
<p>The Ugandan Care Leavers Association has released a <a href="https://www.uganda-care-leavers.org/blog/2023/4/24/uganda-care-leavers-statement-regarding-the-bgt-last-weekend">balanced yet strong critique</a> of the promotion of Ghetto Kids on Britain’s Got Talent. The campaigners recognise that the public support of Ghetto Kids is well intentioned. But they highlight, through sharing their own experiences, how detrimental the lifelong impact of institutional care can be. </p>
<p><a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/1398.pdf/">Institutional care</a> refers to large numbers of children accommodated in one home and cared for by a relatively small number of staff. They differ from smaller scale residential children’s homes that often care for around five to ten children, offer more family-like care and are embedded in the community. The Ghetto Kids home looks after over 30 children, and the founder, Daouda Kavuma, has stated on the show that he has ambitions to grow this number. </p>
<p>Globally, it is estimated that <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ghana/least-four-out-five-children-orphanages-still-have-parents-save-children-reveals">four out of five children</a> living in institutional settings actually have family. <a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/1398.pdf/">Save the Children’s research</a> found that 98% of children in institutional care in central and eastern Europe, 94% in Indonesia, and 90% in Ghana have at least one living parent. </p>
<p>Despite this, many organisations that care for these children still refer to themselves as orphanages. The word evokes stories of caring for a relinquished child. This is a powerful narrative for organisations in low income countries to increase charitable donations. </p>
<p>Studies have revealed that numerous children are victims of exploitation and trafficking into institutions. In some cases, orphanage owners recruit or traffic children to establish <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2349301120140206?casa_token=9_3cbX5FM6kAAAAA:1TyvwZ5x4i4cM83HF3wD8sSStfv6LEzuVScxU7pyPJB1tC4ftrkfeqrd3k7piurEcHGh7QpzODs">“voluntourism”</a> programs. They can profit from overseas volunteers who pay to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/orphanage-trafficking-in-international-law/2D46FD3F9EC343C970306A73EEB66967">spend time with “orphans”</a>.</p>
<h2>The orphan myth</h2>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.sharingtheirnarratives.com">research in Thailand</a> parents told my colleagues and I that they were dissuaded from visiting their children in the homes. This was to avoid the parents encountering donors who believed the children were orphans. Researchers describe this false narrative as the <a href="https://alternativecarethailand.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Exploring-the-Orphan-Myth-in-Thailand_100919_lowres.pdf">“orphan myth”</a>. </p>
<p>There is no evidence that the Ghetto Kids home engages in these exploitative practices, but Britain’s Got Talent risks perpetuating this myth in how it frames their story. <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/i-rescued-ghetto-kids-slums-30115131">Press coverage</a>, and the children themselves, refer to the home as an orphanage. However, Kavuma Dauda, the founder of the troupe, has only said that “some” of the children are orphans. (Britain’s Got Talent did not respond to The Conversation’s request for comment.)</p>
<p>In many countries, children are rarely placed into care due to orphanhood or concerns about abuse. More often, <a href="https://bettercarenetwork.org/bcn-in-action/key-initiatives/rethink-orphanages/resources/people-money-and-resources-the-drivers-of-institutionalization">the driver is poverty and resources</a>. In Thailand <a href="http://www.sharingtheirnarratives.com">we found</a> that parents often placed their children in care to ensure access to basic needs, food, healthcare and education. </p>
<p>For a family living in poverty, the experiences of children from organisations like Ghetto Kids – attending university, finding career success or international dance fame – might present an opportunity to give their children a better life. However, these opportunities can come at a significant cost: a childhood apart from their families.</p>
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<h2>The harms of institutional care</h2>
<p>Decades of research has highlighted the negative outcomes for children in institutional forms of care around the world. The staff-to-child ratio in institutions often affects the staff’s ability to nurture the children. This is often compounded by the staff members being on shift patterns that result in inconsistent care. Children in some settings can experience an estimated <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4130248/">50 to 100 different caregivers</a> in the space of a year.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27429536/">systematic review</a> of the literature concluded that institutional care has a negative impact on children’s attachment. Other studies have reported lower IQ scores and impaired physical growth in institutionalised children compared to those in family based care. This has led <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25125707/">researchers</a> to argue that institutional care can be considered a form of child maltreatment, and described this as a form of structural neglect. </p>
<p>These findings were reinforced in a systematic literature review by the Lancet Commission in 2020, which <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/deinstitutionalisation">unequivocally concluded</a> that institutionalised children in alternative care experience impairment in their physical, social, cognitive and emotional development.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghetto-kids-whats-behind-the-moves-of-the-ugandan-dance-troupe-that-stormed-the-world-204130">Ghetto Kids: what's behind the moves of the Ugandan dance troupe that stormed the world</a>
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<h2>Care reform</h2>
<p>In their statement on Ghetto Kids, the <a href="https://www.uganda-care-leavers.org/blog/2023/4/24/uganda-care-leavers-statement-regarding-the-bgt-last-weekend">Ugandan Care Leavers association</a> called for an end to the promotion of institutional care without considering alternatives that enable children to stay connected to their families and communities. </p>
<p>This alternative lies in governments developing child welfare policies and practices informed by the <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/673583?ln=en">UN guidelines on alternative care</a>. These state children should only be placed away from their families when necessary and that alternatives to institutions with large numbers of children should be developed.</p>
<p>As a result, countries including <a href="https://www.socialprotection.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-National-Care-Reform-Strategy-for-Children-in-Kenya-2022-2032.pdf">Kenya</a> and <a href="https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/reports/child-care-reform-programme-rwanda">Rwanda</a> have started to reform national care to support children to remain in their families, or be placed into small scale children’s homes or foster care placements if that’s not possible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-takes-next-steps-to-replace-childrens-homes-with-family-care-123876">Kenya takes next steps to replace children's homes with family care</a>
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<p>This reform is also happening in <a href="https://www.opml.co.uk/projects/child-care-reform-uganda">Uganda</a>, where activists from the <a href="https://www.uganda-care-leavers.org/">care leavers association</a> and other <a href="https://childsifoundation.org/">nongovernmental</a> <a href="https://www.hopeandhomes.org/every-child-deserves-a-home-advantage/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj8K71ujb_gIVp-_tCh3AbwT0EAAYASAAEgI5vfD_BwE">organisations</a> are working with the government to ensure that children’s rights to family life, enshrined in the <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/what-we-do/childrens-rights/united-nations-convention-of-the-rights-of-the-child?ppc=true&matchtype=&s_keyword=&adposition=&s_kwcid=AL!9048!3!537197821322!!!g!!&gad=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI57u4m_Db_gIVkdLtCh3yvw3gEAAYAyAAEgKM0vD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">UN convention on the rights of the child</a> and the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-rights-and-welfare-child">African charter on the rights and welfare of the child</a>, are met.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205542/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Rogers has previously received research funding from The British Council and The Martin James Foundation. He is also a part of the Open University's Centre for the Study of Global Development.</span></em></p>The success of the Ugandan dance troupe offers a chance to discuss the harms of institutional care.Justin Rogers, Lecturer in Social Work, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1999342023-05-01T12:09:18Z2023-05-01T12:09:18ZWhether or not a man convicted of abusing African ‘orphans’ is exonerated, the missionary system that brought him to Kenya was always deeply flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521932/original/file-20230419-30-ltdodz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C5%2C3858%2C2578&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some African countries are seeking to replace orphanages with family-based care.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/missionary-with-child-royalty-free-image/182366165?adppopup=true">himarkley/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Matthew Durham, a young missionary from Oklahoma, was convicted in 2015 of <a href="https://www.normantranscript.com/news/oklahoma/former-edmond-missionary-matthew-durham-convicted-of-sexually-abusing-kenyan-children/article_4dab7dfc-ca68-5e32-b43d-28a58c0afc4d.html">raping three girls and molesting a boy</a> at the Upendo Children’s Home. He had volunteered at the Kenyan orphanage from 2012 to 2014. </p>
<p>A federal jury found Durham guilty under a 2003 law that makes crimes committed against children abroad punishable in the United States, and U.S. District Court Judge David L. Russell <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/us/missionary-sexual-assault-kenya-children/index.html">sentenced him to 40 years in prison</a>.</p>
<p>Durham has always maintained his innocence, and his legal team say they now have evidence to prove it. Several of the children who testified against Durham – now young adults – came forward in 2021 to say that he never abused them. Rather, they allege that they and other <a href="https://sites.create.ou.edu/andreanaprichard/wp-content/uploads/sites/1620/2023/04/2255-order-on-motion-to-vacate.pdf">residents at the children’s home were coached</a>, beaten and coerced by Kenyan orphanage staff to fabricate stories of sexual abuse and give false testimony against Durham.</p>
<p>In 2022, Durham’s legal team filed a motion with the Western District Court of Oklahoma giving evidence of the children’s new testimonies and requesting that the court overturn Durham’s conviction and vacate his sentence. Although the judge<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2656/Durham_motion_to_vacate.pdf?1682705789"> denied Durham’s petition based on a legal technicality</a>, his legal team has appealed to the 10th Circuit Court in Denver.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zMpD-HEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">a historian who studies evangelical</a> missions in Africa, including missionaries’ efforts to “save” African children, I have <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070327">spent much of the last five years</a> trying to make sense of this case. Any way you look at it, both the initial allegations against Durham and the new claims of abuse and false testimony are tragic. </p>
<p>As Durham waits to see how the courts will rule, I believe his story offers an opportunity to examine the system that made the very existence of this orphanage, Durham’s visits to it, and the competing claims about him, possible.</p>
<h2>2 centuries of ‘white saviors’</h2>
<p>The Western <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-038-4_3">obsession with African orphans</a> began in the 1830s, when British and European mission organizations started working in eastern Africa – the same region where Durham would volunteer nearly 200 years later. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/111/JAS.1.27.NIV">Bible’s call</a> “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” prompted these early humanitarians to <a href="https://msupress.org/9781611862409/sisters-in-spirit/">focus on working with children</a> who had been kidnapped, orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable through the raiding and warring that fueled the <a href="https://mediadiversified.org/2016/05/04/an-introduction-to-the-indian-ocean-slave-trade/">Indian Ocean slave trade</a>. Many of these children ended up at mission-run orphanages or residential schools, which were supported by Western donors and, at times, their governments. </p>
<p>Critics of these interventions, such as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003196051">Victorian novelist Charles Dickens</a>, alleged that the missionaries’ focus on amassing converts blinded them to the well-being of children in their care.</p>
<p>For example, in the 1890s, a famine <a href="https://www.africabib.org/rec.php?RID=K00002516">caused many children to seek support</a> at an orphanage run by the Church Missionary Society at Freretown, near Mombasa, Kenya. When parents or relatives later tried to bring the children home, the missionaries refused to release them, believing they would lose converts and, significantly, the donations that supported their work.</p>
<h2>The ‘orphan industrial complex’</h2>
<p>Today, a similar fixation on profit is part of what motivates orphanage founders, travel companies that promote “<a href="https://rethinkorphanages.org/problem-with-orphanage-tourism">orphan tourism</a>” and the Western donors, missionaries and travelers that support them. Experts call this the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01623-4_2">orphan industrial complex</a>.”</p>
<p>This is a system wherein efforts to care for vulnerable children become entangled with the business interests of the individuals and institutions involved. Paradoxically, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01623-4_2">research shows</a> that orphanage founders, tour companies and mission organizations often benefit most when the goal of serving vulnerable children is not accomplished.</p>
<p>One can’t be in the business of “saving” orphans if there are no orphans to be saved. So savvy orphanage founders and their sponsors <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02402006">often lie about</a> the numbers and the backgrounds of the children under their care. </p>
<p>In fact, around 80% of the 8 million children in residential care around the world <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02402006">are not actually orphans</a>, at least not by the commonly understood definition of a child who has lost both parents. The majority of these children <a href="https://rethinkorphanages.org/problem-orphanages/facts-and-figures-about-orphanage-tourism">have at least one living parent</a> or extended families that could, with the right support, care for them at home. This <a href="https://www.socialprotection.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-National-Care-Reform-Strategy-for-Children-in-Kenya-2022-2032.pdf">includes orphanage residents in Kenya</a>, where Durham worked. </p>
<p>One way children end up at orphanages like Upendo is through a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02402006">form of trafficking</a> in which recruiters take children from their families, often under false pretenses, and sell them to orphanage proprietors. Others are enticed with promises of free education, or are taken from the streets and housed without government knowledge.</p>
<h2>Harming children</h2>
<p>Researchers have found that children raised in residential care facilities are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00313.x">often stigmatized</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2010.487124">experience developmental delays</a>. There is also a large amount of evidence that children who live in orphanages – especially if <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/20/stigma-pushes-disabled-children-into-dangerous-kenyan-orphanages">they have disabilities</a> – face much higher risks of violence, abuse and neglect than other kids.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-15-00093">One study</a> of six low-income countries, including Kenya, found that 50.3% of children in orphanages experienced sexual abuse.</p>
<p>Further, Western missionaries and volunteers are encouraged to behave toward “orphans” in ways that further increase their risk of abuse. Pulling children aside for one-on-one time, initiating close physical contact and buying them gifts are often referred to encouragingly as ways of “<a href="https://bettercarenetwork.org/sites/default/files/Protecting%20Children%20in%20Short%20Term%20Missions.pdf">loving on” orphanage residents</a>. </p>
<p>From a child-protection perspective, these behaviors are also potential warning signs of <a href="https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs">grooming by a sexual predator</a> and can numb children to potential risks. </p>
<p>Some governments in <a href="https://www.unicef.org/eca/sites/unicef.org.eca/files/2018-11/Key%20Results%20in%20Deinstitutionalization%20in%20Eeurope%20and%20Central%20Asia_0.pdf">Europe, Central Asia</a>, <a href="https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/reports/beyond-institutional-care">Latin America and the Caribbean</a> are trying to phase out these orphanages, as well as in some African countries like Kenya. The country where Durham went several times for short stints as a volunteer is attempting to <a href="https://www.socialprotection.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-National-Care-Reform-Strategy-for-Children-in-Kenya-2022-2032.pdf">replace residential children’s homes</a> with family-based, foster and community-based care over the next decade.</p>
<p>Organizations such as <a href="https://rethinkorphanages.org/volunteer-checklist/travel-companies-do-not-support-orphanage-tourism">Africa Impact and Projects Abroad</a>, two U.S.-based companies that organize volunteer opportunities on the continent, have phased out orphanage tourism programs.</p>
<h2>An entire system on trial</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/us/kenya-abuse-orphange-dow.html">conviction of a white missionary</a> for child abuse isn’t unprecedented. Like Durham, Gregory Dow, an American who had run another Kenyan orphanage, was convicted in 2015 of sexually abusing some of its young residents. <a href="https://churchleaders.com/news/343038-missionary-gets-life-in-prison-for-abusing-children-in-cambodia.html">Daniel Stephen Johnson</a>, of Coos Bay, Oregon, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for sexually abusing children in Cambodia.</p>
<p>Other such offenders, including <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/crime/poetic-justice-jury-hears-richard-huckle-the-man-named-britains-worst-pedophile-tortured-and-killed-in-prison-c-1616114">Richard Huckle</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-34602953">Simon Harris</a>, have gone from the U.K. to orphanages in low-income countries and sexually abused the children they were supposedly there to help.</p>
<p>There is also a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/ungodly-abuse-lasting-torment-new-tribes-missionary-kids-n967191">sordid cast of missionary organizations</a> and <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201412080196.html">local proprietors of orphanages in low-income countries</a> that commit crimes while purporting to do good.</p>
<p>But these new claims by the Upendo survivors are unique because they illuminate the various forms of violence to which children in residential care are exposed both by missionaries and the very people purporting to protect them.</p>
<p>According to the legal documents and news coverage I’ve reviewed, the former orphanage residents who recanted their testimonies against Durham haven’t said why orphanage staff told them to lie. It would be a tragedy if it turns out Durham has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, but regardless of whether he is eventually exonerated, I believe it is ultimately the children who will have suffered the most.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreana Prichard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable children, many of Africa’s orphanages are exploiting them.Andreana Prichard, Associate Professor of Honors and African History, University of OklahomaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1071992018-11-20T09:05:12Z2018-11-20T09:05:12ZPolicies in South Africa must stop ignoring families’ daily realities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246184/original/file-20181119-76144-nq5imx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has one of the lowest rates of both parents living with their children in the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What is “a family”? In South African law, the answer – or rather, <em>answers</em> – are broad. For example, it’s not considered unusual or unacceptable for children to move between kin and to be raised at different stages by grandparents, parents and other relatives. Kinship care is a widespread and customary practice in South Africa, as it is elsewhere in southern Africa. </p>
<p>The reason for this is partly cultural and partly historical. The apartheid system literally <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01715.x">capitalised</a> on the role of extended family, particularly women. It forcibly fragmented families and separated children from parents.</p>
<p>The result of this can be seen in international comparisons from the <a href="https://worldfamilymap.ifstudies.org/2017/files/WFM-2017-FullReport.pdf">World Family Map</a>: according to this report, South Africa has one of the lowest rates of parent co-residence with children in the world. Over 12 million of the country’s 19 million children don’t live with their fathers. Four million don’t live with either of their biological parents.</p>
<p>Across the world, families are changing: marriage rates <a href="https://worldfamilymap.ifstudies.org/2017/files/WFM-2017-FullReport.pdf">are falling</a>; single parenting is <a href="https://worldfamilymap.ifstudies.org/2017/files/WFM-2017-FullReport.pdf">on the rise</a>. In some ways South Africa follows this trend. But it differs in the case of parental absence and the fact that most children’s parents don’t live together.</p>
<p>Apartheid imposed legislation to fracture families. Its <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01715.x">policies</a> saw many men leave their families to work in mines or cities, and to live in single-sex hostels away from their wives and children. Forced removals and a lack of suitable family accommodation in cities presented huge obstacles to family life. Many of these obstacles persist today. The country’s policies don’t, by and large, address them meaningfully.</p>
<p>The diversity of families is one of the important underlying themes of the <a href="http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/ci/child-gauge/2018">South African Child Gauge 2018</a>, launched on November 20 to coincide with World Children’s Day.</p>
<p>The Child Gauge describes childcare as one of many, often competing, family strategies. It recommends that policies and services should be more sensitive to the realities of South African family dynamics.</p>
<h2>Policies ignore reality</h2>
<p>One of the hangovers from apartheid is the entrenched idea of the nuclear family – heterosexual mother and father living together with their children – as “ideal”. This notion has remained remarkably persistent; its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0376835X.2017.1318700?journalCode=cdsa20">privileged status</a> is sometimes implicit in policies and in the attitudes of those who implement policy.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.dsd.gov.za/index.php?option=com_docman&amp;task=cat_view&amp;gid=33&amp;Itemid=39">White Paper on Families</a> consciously departs from assumptions about nuclear families as a normative model. It acknowledges the diversity of family forms and living arrangements.</p>
<p>Yet much of its content suggests an underlying vision of the ideal family as a stable unit built on the foundation of marital union and biological parents living together with their children.</p>
<p>This ignores global and South African realities. Marriage rates <a href="https://worldfamilymap.ifstudies.org/2017/files/WFM-2017-FullReport.pdf">are declining </a> across the world. In South Africa, they have been dropping since the 1960s.</p>
<p>The laws and systems for birth registration are oriented to nuclear arrangements. This makes it difficult for unmarried fathers and grandparents to register children in their care. An astonishing <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0305/Recorded_Live_Births_2017.pdf">60% of children</a> don’t have their father’s name on their birth certificate. That can have real consequences: it’s difficult to claim maintenance, and if the child’s father dies it’s difficult to prove orphan status and claim the associated benefits and protections.</p>
<p>And while <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2005-038%20childrensact.pdf">the law</a> states that children have a right to family care and grandparents have a duty of care, some of its policies undermine this. The state places orphaned children who already live with family members (mostly grandparents) in foster care with their family. This formalises an existing arrangement, but introduces an enormous amount of paperwork and red tape.</p>
<p>The foster care system is resource-intensive. It requires investigations and reports by social workers, formal placement by the courts and regular reviews. It’s meant to be a temporary arrangement for children who are removed from their families because of abuse or neglect.</p>
<p>By insisting that orphaned children living with grandparents should be monitored by social workers, the state seems to regard extended families with suspicion. This is an inappropriate use of resources given that extended families care for much larger numbers of children whose parents live elsewhere, and are not subjected to the same scrutiny. It has also reduced the state’s <a href="http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/367/Child_Gauge/2006/Child_Gauge_2016-social_assistance_for_orphaned.pdf">capacity</a> to protect children who are abused. </p>
<p>Such policies suggest that the state doesn’t realise kinship care isn’t always a choice. It may sometimes be a necessity as families strategise to maintain multiple households, to secure adequate housing at migration destinations, to further the education of their members and to find work and provide income.</p>
<h2>Addressing the issues</h2>
<p>What can be done to improve this situation?</p>
<p>First, demand-driven responsive services need to be strengthened so that families can rely on an efficient response when they need urgent assistance. All services should be delivered in a way that enables equitable access for families who need them, irrespective of their structure or household form.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwi4j5iUzuDeAhVdFMAKHQOdCsQQFjAAegQICRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sacssp.co.za%2FNDSD_CCPP_19_DECEMBER.docx&usg=AOvVaw0bYUw3IvHSZZzEOoXiQKzM">Draft Care and Protection Policy</a>, published for comment in 2018, proposes that for children living with kin whose parents live elsewhere, the kinship carer and parent must formalise the arrangement by concluding a “parenting rights and responsibilities” agreement. </p>
<p>Rather than trying to regulate families, the current state structures should support families to achieve their desired living arrangements and childcare choices. It needs to address the structural constraints by providing services and infrastructure – like adequate housing, safer environments and quality childcare facilities – that make it possible for children and parents to live together if they wish.</p>
<p>It is only in this way that the Constitution’s progressive and inclusive vision will be fulfilled.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Hall has received funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>The diversity of families is one of the important underlying themes of the South African Child Gauge 2018.Katharine Hall, Senior researcher, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/785412017-07-19T06:11:16Z2017-07-19T06:11:16ZModern slavery and tourism: when holidays and human exploitation collide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171608/original/file-20170531-25700-b85ncw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Cambodian Children's Trust family preservation work keeps families together.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tara Winkler</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Holidays are a privilege that many who are fortunate to take them look forward to. They are an opportunity to indulge, relax and recharge – and what could be better than being able to do so while doing good? </p>
<p>But the costs of production of the tourist experience are often glossed over. And modern slavery practices are especially evident in the tourism supply chain in developing countries.</p>
<h2>Desperate people</h2>
<p>Modern slavery is described as the conduct of practices similar to <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/">slavery, including debt bondage and forced labour</a>. The use of force, deception and the deprivation of freedom are common.</p>
<p>The links between <a href="https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/">modern slavery</a> and the fashion and textiles industry, mining, agriculture and domestic work are well known. It’s common in developing countries where people are desperate and vulnerable to exploitation. </p>
<p>This is not to say that developed countries are immune. In Australia, a federal parliamentary committee is inquiring* into <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/ModernSlavery">establishing a Modern Slavery Act</a>. This follows the passing of the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act in 2015. Such moves are linked to growing calls for action against modern slavery in domestic and global supply chains.</p>
<p>In most developed countries, much less attention is given to modern slavery than elsewhere. This is particularly so in the case of developing countries where labour is cheap and exploitation underlies the production of goods and services consumed in developed countries.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/">Global Slavery Index</a>, in 2016 about 45.8 million people were subject to some form of modern slavery. Most of them are in developing countries where worker rights are poorly protected.</p>
<p>When it comes to international tourism, concerns over links with modern slavery have been mostly subdued. This occurs despite the push for more <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Tourism-Resilience-and-Sustainability-Adapting-to-Social-Political-and/Cheer-Lew/p/book/9781138206786">sustainable, resilient</a> and <a href="http://ethics.unwto.org/content/responsible-tourist">responsible modes of tourism</a>. </p>
<p>Tourism is often linked to <a href="http://icr.unwto.org/content/guidebook-sustainable-tourism-development">sustainable economic development</a> that can make communities better off. This is encouraged by governments keen to maximise tourist spending.</p>
<p>International tourism in developing countries is neither all good nor all bad. Beyond its potential to do good, however, <a href="https://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/exploitation-of-women/">tourism and its association with modern slavery</a> is rarely highlighted. </p>
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<p>In particular, little is made of the harsh conditions that many who service the industry tend to face. This is more apparent in some forms of tourism than others, and especially where worker rights and social justice concerns are systematically compromised. </p>
<p>Some of the strongest links between slavery and tourism are found in <a href="http://globalstudysectt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Global-Report-Offenders-on-the-Move-Final.pdf">sex tourism</a>, <a href="http://www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Volun-tourism.pdf">orphanage tourism</a> and in the <a href="https://www.tourismconcern.org.uk">services supply chain</a>.</p>
<h2>Orphanage tourism</h2>
<p>While the development of responsible tourism has improved traveller awareness of the need to “give back” to their hosts, it has also encouraged opportunists. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/29/orphanage-tourism-fears-of-child-exploitation-boom-as-myanmar-opens-up">enormous growth of orphanage tourism</a> in Southeast Asia is proof of this. </p>
<p>Globally, up to <a href="http://www.rethinkorphanages.org/about-us/">8 million children live in institutions</a>, but over 80% of these children have parents or family.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.au/about-us/media-and-publications/latest-news/years/2015/orphanage-tourism">Orphanage tourism</a> takes place when tourists visit orphanages and donate money and goods. The demand for “<a href="https://theconversation.com/orphanage-trips-by-aussie-schools-are-doing-more-harm-than-good-38035">orphan experiences</a>” often includes <a href="https://player.vimeo.com/video/105619361?wmode=opaque&api=1">volunteering</a> at residential care facilities and interacting with children. Children become tourist attractions and tourists become the agents for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-business-of-orphanages-where-do-orphans-come-from-38485">orphanages as business enterprises</a> rather than as sites of care.</p>
<p>In academic terms, orphanage tourism sits under what is known as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616688.2012.675579">geographies of compassion</a>. That is, tourist behaviour is guided by moral and ethical concerns that are largely focused on social justice motives. </p>
<p>The relationship between international tourists and orphans in developing countries is driven by a mix of clever marketing and appeals to the traveller’s good conscience. Marketing efforts offer to place tourists in orphanages for a few hours, a day or longer. Emotive images and persuasive language are used to promote orphanage visits, alongside enthusiastic testimonials from past visitors.</p>
<p>Good intentions, money and the desire to help are essential ingredients for the orphanage tourism industry. Usually, the traveller constructs a view of “the problem” where they are an important part of “the solution”. Tourists then inadvertently become agents in an exploitative business model that profits the orphanage owner while compromising the well-being of children.</p>
<p>Many argue that the “bad” orphanages, those run by unscrupulous operators who knowingly and systematically exploit children for profit, shouldn’t negate the work of the “good” orphanages. However, there is no such thing as a good orphanage – only best-practice child-care facilities. These are the ones that provide high-quality residential care. </p>
<p>Children below the age of 12 are still best off in <a href="http://www.rethinkorphanages.org/about-us/">family-based care and not in institutions</a>. When orphanages are financially supported through donations and volunteer programs, the best interests of children are compromised. </p>
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<p>In the worst cases, children are exploited through forced labour, enforced begging, human trafficking, or sex tourism. In other cases, exploitation occurs by way of forced interaction with volunteers, loss of rights to privacy and increased risk of physical and sexual abuse.</p>
<p>In coming to terms with the growth of orphanage tourism in developing countries, the usual absence of families and communities requires an urgent rethink. Instead of promoting the tourist as part of the solution, it should be emphasised that visits to orphanages very often lead to modern slavery conditions. </p>
<h2>Shared responsibility for a solution</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.pataconversations.com/james-sutherland-thinkchildsafe/">Stemming the tide of orphanage tourism</a> requires collaboration and cooperation between national governments, non-government organisations and the tourism industry. Cross-border cooperation and a commitment at the supply and demand sides of the international tourism industry are required.</p>
<p>The solution lies in reducing tourist demand for orphanage experiences; <a href="https://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/">children are not tourist attractions</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BRsHSy-AGdJ","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Along with government and industry, travellers have a huge responsibility. This includes ensuring that holidays are produced ethically and that the rights of producers are upheld. </p>
<p>2017 is the <a href="http://www.tourism4development2017.org">International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development</a>. The festering sore that is orphanage tourism requires urgent surgery. Children are some of the most vulnerable in society, and development that compromises their futures is futile. </p>
<p>Travellers, governments and the international tourism industry all bear responsibility. While there remains a demand for orphanage visits in developing countries and little is done to stop it, suppliers will emerge.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>*The Inquiry into Establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia is holding <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/ModernSlavery/Public_Hearings">public hearings</a> in Melbourne on August 1-2 and in Canberra on August 11.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leigh Mathews consults to the travel sector on child protection issues in supply chains. She is affiliated with ReThink Orphanages. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph M. Cheer, Kent Goldsworthy, and Shivani Kanodia do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Good intentions, money and the desire to help are essential ingredients for the orphanage tourism industry. But tourists end up becoming agents in the exploitation of children.Joseph M. Cheer, Lecturer, National Centre for Australian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash UniversityKent Goldsworthy, PhD Candidate and Teacher - RMIT School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT UniversityLeigh Mathews, Founder / Principal Consultant, Alto Global Consulting. Coordinator, ReThink Orphanages, Deakin UniversityShivani Kanodia, Postgraduate Researcher in Sustainable Tourism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/586592016-05-19T10:03:51Z2016-05-19T10:03:51ZCan a lack of love be deadly?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121353/original/image-20160505-19860-71z7qh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Love and affection are as important as food, water and shelter.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesgoodmanphotography/7428401714/sizes/l">jamesgoodmanphotography/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I taught myself about orphanages 12 years ago, not actually because of my work as a human biologist but because of my daughter. She was born in 2004 and her first 14 months of life were spent in an orphanage in China.</p>
<p>I am well acquainted with the vast body of research that shows the physical and psychological harms of deprived environments. Orphanages can arguably be placed under this category along with other places such as refugee camps and some hospitals where children lack close contact and attention. Deprivation comes in many shapes and forms: lack of food, diseases, maltreatment, and child abuse are some of the harms that come to mind. However, I would argue that deprivation of love can be just as deadly.</p>
<p>When I started researching orphanages and child health I read the classic works of paediatrician <a href="http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1179366">Harry Bakwin</a>, psychologist [John Bowlby](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/40724/1/WHO_MONO_2_(part1.pdf) and psychiatrist <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/catalog/citation?id=88946">Harry Edelston</a>. At the beginning of the 20th century, in the US and the UK, the death rates among infants placed in orphanages, nurseries, and foundling hospitals were, in some cases, close to 100%. London’s <a href="http://foundlingmuseum.org.uk">Foundling Museum</a> documents in depth these harsh realities. In the 1940s, the work of psychoanalyst Rene Spitz further <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1125870?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">documented high infant death rates</a> (one out of three) and, among the babies who didn’t die, high percentages of cognitive, behavioural and psychological disfunction. </p>
<p>Most of these deaths were not due to starvation or disease, but to severe emotional and sensorial deprivation – in other words, a lack of love. These babies were fed and medically treated, but they were absolutely deprived of important stimulation, especially touch and affection.</p>
<h2>The importance of touch</h2>
<p>Human touch is fundamental for human development and survival. Research conducted by Ruth Feldman and Tiffany Field has shown the positive effects that come from skin-to-skin touch in premature babies and that these effects are <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/the-loving-touch-is-critical-for-premature-infants">still at work after ten years</a>. Significant gains in neurological development, weight gain, and mental development of premature babies have been shown to be triggered by <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/13/1/69/">skin-to-skin stimulation</a>.</p>
<p>Infants in orphanages can be deprived of touch, individual attention, and love. This happens not because all orphanages are terrible places (although some of them are), but because there are usually too many babies for the staff to manage. In the case of the hospitals, in Europe and the US in the first half of the 20th century, nurses were required to cover their faces with surgical masks and not interact with babies. Parents and other family members were prevented from visiting freely as it was believed this would prevent infections from spreading and help keep babies healthy. However, instead of getting better the babies got worse.</p>
<p>Bakwin understood that this was harmful to the children’s well-being. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022347649800710">He stated</a> that “failure of infants to thrive in institutions is due to emotional deprivation”. The term “<a href="http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/0401/p829.html">failure to thrive</a>” is currently used as an umbrella term of conditions, ranging from growth delay, emotional misery and death. It is a generalised health problem seen in high-income and low-income countries although it is more prevalent when poverty and a lack of human resources prevents the babies from receiving emotional and sensorial stimulation (or love) on a daily basis.</p>
<h2>My daughter’s story</h2>
<p>The reports from our adoption agency guaranteed that the children were well taken care of, fed appropriately, and had toys to play with. But how much sensory stimulation were they given? We knew that the babies were trained, from very early, to hold their feeding bottle on their own. It was not possible to have a carer per child during feeding times. </p>
<p>We flew to China and adoption day finally arrived. Our daughter seemed to be in good health. She adapted herself to us quickly, clearly enjoying the attention we provided, and ate everything we offered. However, on the day we held her for the first time, 90% of the baby girls her age were <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/growthcharts/who/using/assessing_growth.htm">taller than her</a>. The effects of short height at this age can linger for life and are usually associated with poor health in later life, such as a greater risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. </p>
<p>Once we got her back home, we were certain that love and bonding would be what she needed most. Three months later, 75% of girls her age were taller than her. Today, at 11 years of age, only 50% of girls her age are taller than her. This is consistent with research that shows a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17700087">catch-up growth</a> for children who were in orphanages and internationally adopted.</p>
<p>When emotional deprivation and lack of love occur, physical growth slows down or stops. The body enters into a survival mode where vital, basic physiological functions are preserved at the cost of physical, mental, and social development. The longer the child is in survival mode, the more permanent and negative the effects will be. Once a child is adopted and the amount of love, care, and stimulation increases, the body ceases to be in survival mode and will start recuperating.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121129/original/image-20160504-19860-1j42d32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wall growth chart for my daughter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>My husband and I study <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3176514">anthropometry</a>, the study of human body measurements, providing accurate biomedical information on health and nutritional status. We measure our daughter twice a year and compare the results with the <a href="http://www.who.int/growthref/en/">World Health Organisation references</a>. But we do not obsess over her measurements. She is a very healthy child, doing well at school in academic subjects, sports, and music. We are now happily bracing for adolescence.</p>
<p>Our daughter’s experience mirrors that of thousands of other babies adopted into loving, well-off families. Increasing awareness on this issue is a step in the right direction, so that more orphaned children receive the happy ending my daughter did.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Inês Varela-Silva receives funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is affiliated with Loughborough University </span></em></p>Children raised in orphanages often lack a key ingredient for healthy development – love.Inês Varela-Silva, Senior Lecturer in Human Biology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/454122015-08-13T05:56:15Z2015-08-13T05:56:15ZBetter policies are needed to support local adoptions for children orphaned by Ebola<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91103/original/image-20150807-9923-1qqvlu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Better policies could do a lot to help children orphaned by Ebola.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unicefguinea/15463546618/in/photolist-pysHEJ-pQYZTJ-r5ndGw-oerhxP-rwjPiC-ryvKVC-sxxkhj-sQ8odZ-rTmqpZ-rT8Lto-sxFrin-sxzCX7-rT9CT1-sxxHwE-sPXwLS-rTm4wX-sxGSLV-sPWrsY-sQa1jP-sxF3Gk-sxysQq-sQ9qoD-rTkDaa-rTkcJR-sMQPCh-rTk88M-sPWYAQ-rT8bFU-pzfgiA-ocvwnC-oeri1x-ocAdRU-ocEnhB-oaC3rY-nVaX1B-oaC4wJ-oaC3YE-ocEmMt-nVbPzR-rJN9R3-pJhysz-nVazSf-rqyqtk-rqqYhq-roGdBZ">UNICEF Guinea</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the worst of the Ebola epidemic has passed, its impact is far from over for the orphans left behind. In Sierra Leone alone, a country of just over six million people, the Ebola epidemic has orphaned more than 12,000 children who have lost one or both family members, according to <a href="http://www.street-child.co.uk/ebola-orphan-report">Street Child</a>, a British charity.</p>
<p>It might seems like adoption is the most obvious solution to help these orphaned children. But adoption in this scenario, whether to relatives nearby or prospective parents overseas, is difficult. Instead, governments in West Africa and international aid agencies should help facilitate adoptions locally and provide better health care and education to support entire communities.</p>
<h2>Family adoption isn’t always easy</h2>
<p>I first went to Sierra Leone in 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar to research the impact of humanitarian aid on children and other vulnerable groups. The orphans I encountered faced many health and educational challenges, but they usually were not homeless. Instead, relatives within an extended family group cared for them.</p>
<p>Traditional adoption, however, is unlikely to help all Ebola orphans throughout West Africa. These orphans are often stigmatized by their association with the disease. In some cases, the orphans are also the only member of their extended family to survive. And the children who endured the disease often need additional medical attention for lingering health problems, such as poor eyesight and joint pain, which few families can cope with alone.</p>
<p>Arranging family adoption is also problematic, as Ebola orphans are clustered in separate communities. Francis Mason, director of the Conforti Community Aid Children Organization (CCACO) of Freetown, emphasized in an interview with me that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem is not so much of individual orphans but of groups of orphans in communities where whole families are missing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the village of Romeni, located in Port Loko province, community members now struggle to care for 522 officially registered orphans. While Romeni, which had a pre-Ebola population of over 2,000, accepts responsibility for the children, the sheer numbers add to the economic stress caused by the epidemic. Food shortages are common, and even clothing the children is a problem. Many have only rags to wear. </p>
<p>In other cases, orphans have moved multiple times, having been taken from their home village to a distant Ebola Treatment Center, and then returned, only to be passed between relatives. Some are unable to be reunited with family members. </p>
<p>While on a recent visit to Port Loko, I learned of one small boy, age six, who became stranded in a care center in Bo, a city far away from his original home. While the boy knew his name, he was uncertain of his home. Despite repeated attempts to find relatives, his village has yet to be located, leaving him for an indefinite time in the care center, separated from family members.</p>
<h2>International adoption won’t help many children</h2>
<p>In past responses to epidemics, international adoption has helped to supplement local solutions. But in this case, foreign adoption is unlikely to be widely used. The policies of both national governments and international organizations make this process complex and lengthy. </p>
<p>In addition, <a>regional norms</a>, developed by the African Child Policy Forum (<a href="http://www.africanchildforum.org/en/index.php/en/">ACPF</a>), actively discourage adoption of Africans by foreigners. </p>
<p>According to Mark Montgomery, professor of economics at Grinnell College and an expert on international adoption, “Very few African countries allow more than a trickle of children to be adopted abroad.”</p>
<p>Although Sierra Leone does not officially prohibit adoption, prospective parents must fulfill a six-month residency requirement. The entire adoption process can take up to two years and includes mandatory field investigations by the US Department of State. </p>
<p>According to the State Department, only <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/adoptionsabroad/en/country-information/learn-about-a-country/sierra-leone.html">33 children</a> from Sierra Leone were adopted by Americans in 2013.</p>
<h2>Policies to support orphans within their communities</h2>
<p>Adoption alone is unlikely to meet the needs of Ebola orphans. But an integrated approach that enhances traditional solutions with special measures for orphans, their families and their wider communities could do that.</p>
<p>A starting point for this strategy is to establish the legal status of orphans and secure their position with a family member or other caregiver. This may require outside intervention from international humanitarian agencies. It may be necessary to search for surviving relatives in another community or bring children from a distant treatment center back to their village. </p>
<p>In Sierra Leone, <a href="http://www.unicef.org/appeals/files/UNICEF_Sierra_Leone_EVD_Weekly_SitRep_15_July_2015.pdf">UNICEF</a>, in conjunction with the national <a href="http://mswgca.gov.sl/Ebola/index.html">Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs</a>, supports civil society groups that reunite Ebola orphans with family members and help to establish guardianship. Children may be moved from one home to another if their current family setting is unsuitable.</p>
<p>Orphans also need to be protected from the danger of illegal activities. “Ebola has put children more at risk for child trafficking, child abuse, and child labor,” says Haley Clark, Child Protection Officer at <a href="http://www.worldhope.org/locations/africa">World Hope International</a>, an American humanitarian organization, who spoke with me in Freetown. She says that there needs to be more coordination between aid and support services to address human trafficking and child labor in both rural and urban settings. </p>
<p>Most importantly, support for individual orphans could be combined with broader community development efforts that address education, health care, food security and housing. This approach would supplement major initiatives undertaken by the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/09/25/world-bank-group-nearly-double-funding-ebola-crisis-400-million">World Bank</a> to improve medical care in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In addition, orphans need targeted support efforts in places that are former Ebola hot-spots.</p>
<p>For instance, support for local schools in villages hard-hit by Ebola will help not only orphans but also other children as well. Greater attention to clean water and adequate sanitation in both urban and rural areas is especially important, as improvements in these areas can help to prevent the outbreak of future epidemics.</p>
<p>Greater integration between programs targeted at individual orphans and those designed to help their wider community can help heal the ravages of the Ebola epidemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudena Skran received funding from the US government - Fulbright Fellowship (2005-06) and UNHCR - consultant (2011-12) to conduct research on aid projects in Sierra Leone. She is affiliated with the Kidsgive - Sierra Leone scholarship program, supported by Lawrence University and private donors..</span></em></p>Governments in West Africa and international aid agencies should help facilitate adoptions locally and provide better health care and education to support entire communities.Claudena Skran, Professor of Government and West Professor of Economics and Social Science, Lawrence UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/411652015-05-05T20:16:05Z2015-05-05T20:16:05ZEarthquake orphans: what Nepal can learn from Haiti<p>Following the earthquake in 2010, Westerners flocked to Haiti to “rescue” orphaned and lost children. The “rescue” included the evacuation of children by plane for inter-country adoption and an increase in the number of children placed in orphanages in the following months. The problem that has since emerged is that many of the “orphans” placed in orphanages and sent for adoption were not orphaned at all.</p>
<h2>Many ‘orphans’ had one or both parents</h2>
<p>As part of the earthquake response, the Haitian government <a href="http://www.rescue.org/news/international-rescue-committee-says-foreign-adoptions-haitian-children-are-still-premature-aid-">expedited inter-country adoptions</a> that were already underway.</p>
<p>They temporarily suspended any new adoptions in order to protect children. Scandal in Haiti soon erupted when <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/04/haiti.arrests/">10 missionaries were charged with child abduction</a> after trying to take 33 children out of the country without permission (as they were not orphans).</p>
<p>Another 53 children were airlifted by a US governor for adoption, only to find that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/americas/24orphans.html?_r=0">12 of them weren’t in fact orphans</a>. The Haitian situation <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/05/10/the-last-babylift">revealed inter-country adoption</a> should hold a very limited place in the immediate disaster response.</p>
<p>Instead of housing lost children temporarily while families were located, orphanages became a permanent solution in Haiti. The problem has only worsened since 2010. Statistics indicate that up to 80% of 30,000 children currently in orphanages in Haiti are not orphans and could live at home with one or both parents. </p>
<p>It is a statistic that is shared by Nepal, which has just suffered an earthquake of 7.9 magnitude. Nepal already struggles with the issue of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/27/nepal-bogus-orphan-trade-voluntourism">unscrupulous orphanage operators</a>. Nepal’s children may become victim to the “rescue” mentality of people meaning well but potentially causing harm in the long run.</p>
<p>So, what can Nepal learn from Haiti and other natural disasters to protect its children in these post-earthquake days?</p>
<p>When disaster strikes, already vulnerable children are put even more at risk. Natural disasters can lead to children being separated from their families. There is a tendency to deal with this situation by <a href="http://wearelumos.org/stories/families-emergency-situations">placing children in orphanages</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.wearelumos.org/stories/keeping-families-together-emergency-situations">The research</a> shows that this action can result in the production of “paper orphans” (children who are orphans through virtue of falsified paper documents only) and can <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-business-of-orphanages-where-do-orphans-come-from-38485">fuel the business model of orphanages</a>.</p>
<h2>The Aceh tsunami</h2>
<p>Prior to the Haitian earthquake, the international community responded to the tsunami in Aceh in 2004. Unfortunately, it seems that the lessons from Aceh were not learnt in Haiti. In post-tsunami Aceh, there was also a huge increase in the number of children placed in orphanages. </p>
<p><a href="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/A33B5EE2179FE21FC1257230004FC11A-sc-idn-27nov.pdf">Research showed</a> that the explosion in aid following the tsunami was a critical factor in the increase in residential care facilities, or orphanages, being established. </p>
<p>The aid poured into orphanages from privately funded non-government organisations as well as domestic and international governments. In that context, 85% of children living in orphanages following the tsunami had at least one parent alive. </p>
<p>It was further determined that in 97.5% of cases the parents had placed their child in the orphanage for education purposes. This indicates other programs focusing on educational support, instead of orphanages, may have produced better outcomes for children. </p>
<h2>Nepal learning from other natural disasters</h2>
<p>Heeding these lessons, child protection organisations working in Nepal are focusing on ensuring that separated children are quickly <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/05/04/4228900.htm">reunited with their families</a> and not placed in orphanages unnecessarily. </p>
<p>Agencies have created “<a href="http://www.wvi.org/nepal-earthquake/gallery/world-vision-opens-safe-places-children-recover-nepal-earthquake">Child Friendly Spaces</a>” to help children work through the trauma associated with the earthquake, and also to monitor children that require assistance.</p>
<p>Some child protection organisations have addressed the inter-country adoption issue directly. Children’s charity SOS Children’s Villages <a href="http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/international-adoptions-and-the-nepal-earthquake-837">posted a notice on their website</a> immediately after the earthquake explaining why inter-country adoption was not an appropriate option at this stage. </p>
<p>Fortunately, Nepal tightened its inter-country adoption laws in the past few years. There has been no immediate suggestion of relaxing them in order to expedite adoptions, as happened in Haiti.</p>
<p>There has also been a major focus on encouraging people to donate money rather than <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/earthquake-nepal-dont-rush-help-volunteers-aid">rushing to Nepal</a> to volunteer in the aid effort. In the child protection space, the clear message is that orphanage voluntourism, where people volunteer in orphanages in developing countries, <a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10985867_972753006102795_4789826867917173453_n.png?oh=cbd143d309a6c08b1bbcc17c8763f90c&oe=55CA6B6E&__gda__=1439099396_4b907c41b48c93e37afd25f6eee0d74f">is not desirable or required</a>. </p>
<p>It appears <a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-inconvenient-truths-about-voluntourism.html">the message</a> is beginning to resonate. People are starting to understand that <a href="http://www.nextgenerationnepal.org/File/The-Paradox-of-Orphanage-Volunteering.pdf">good intentions can lead to harmful outcomes</a> for vulnerable children. This is only amplified in the current situation.</p>
<p>Overall, it appears the response to the vulnerable children of the Nepal earthquake is implementing the lessons learnt from Haiti. Prior to the earthquake, Nepal committed to <a href="http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/02/27/top-story/raids-on-orphanages/259790.html">monitoring and closing</a> unregistered and non-compliant orphanages. The hope is that as aid floods into the small developing nation, this commitment will be remembered, upheld and implemented. </p>
<p>Nepal and its children have a long road to recovery ahead. Let’s hope they, and the international community, are wise enough to implement the lessons from the past in order to protect the future of their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate van Doore is affiliated with Forget Me Not.</span></em></p>Following the earthquake in 2010, people flocked to Haiti to “rescue” orphaned and lost children. The problem that has since emerged is that many of the “orphans” placed in orphanages and sent for adoption, were not orphaned at all.Kate van Doore, Lecturer in Law, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/384852015-03-09T18:49:36Z2015-03-09T18:49:36ZThe business of orphanages: where do ‘orphans’ come from?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74007/original/image-20150306-3284-1jam94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of orphanages in developing nations has dramatically increased in the past decade, driven by a fraudulent trade in 'paper orphans'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ihhinsaniyardimvakfi/8475155967">IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently, Friends International launched the “<a href="http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforedonating/">Don’t create more orphans</a>” campaign confronting the issue of orphanages as profit-driven businesses. The number of orphanages in developing nations has dramatically increased in the past decade, but where are the “orphans” coming from?</p>
<p>In 2009, Save the Children reported that internationally <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Keeping_Children_Out_of_Harmful_Institutions_Final_20.11.09_1.pdf">four out of five children</a> living in orphanages were not orphans. The report noted that poor families were coerced into giving up their children by unscrupulous institutions hoping to profit from either the residence or trafficking of their children.</p>
<p>These children are known as “paper orphans” - children who have orphan status through falsified documentation. This problem has been detailed by reports in <a href="http://www.tdh.ch/en/documents/adopting-the-rights-of-the-child">Nepal</a>, <a href="http://www.unicef.org/cambodia/Study_Attitudes_towards_RC-English.pdf">Cambodia</a>, <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/report/84582/west-africa-protecting-children-from-orphan-dealers">Ghana</a> and <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/A_last_resort_1.pdf">Uganda</a>, as well as other developing nations.</p>
<h2>Where do ‘paper orphans’ come from?</h2>
<p>The reports tell the <a href="http://www.nextgenerationnepal.org/File/Next-Generation-Nepal_FAQs-on-Orphanage-Trafficking-and-Orphanage-Voluntourism.pdf">same story</a>. “Recruiters” target families in rural areas with limited access to education for their children. They convince the family that their child will receive a better education and future in a boarding school. The recruiters often collect several children from a village under this guise and then depart with the children to a city. </p>
<p>In the city, the children are often sold into orphanages (if not into another form of exploitation). Once in an orphanage, the children become “paper orphans”, with names changed, death certificates for parents forged and requests for family contact denied. </p>
<p>Families are unable to locate their children due to these changes of identity. If parents are fortunate enough to locate them, they are advised that they have relinquished their rights to the child and are not allowed to see them.</p>
<p>There are detailed cases of children then being placed for <a href="http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/docs/FPFinalTheLieWeLove.pdf">inter-country adoption</a>, but there is limited academic attention to what happens to the children who remain in the orphanages. These children are subject to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/orphanage-trips-by-aussie-schools-are-doing-more-harm-than-good-38035">usual issues</a> associated with long-term institutionalisation, with the added trauma of being forced to lie about their orphanhood.</p>
<p>The orphanage <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/stealing-a-generation-cambodias-unfolding-tragedy-20130406-2hdy2.html">profits</a> in many ways from the presence of these “paper orphans”. Some orphanages encourage volunteers to come and spend time with the children, profiting through the fees they charge and lower care costs due to the free labour that volunteers provide. Others have their “orphans” <a href="http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/en/content/tip4/qna.html">dance or sing</a> to encourage donations.</p>
<p>These practices are harmful to the child who learns that their worth and value is determined by their orphanhood.</p>
<h2>Confronting our participation</h2>
<p>If you’ve previously been an orphanage volunteer, or contributed to an orphanage, it’s natural to feel confronted by Friends International’s campaign. The premise of the campaign is that, by donating to orphanages, you are contributing to a business model that commodifies children and takes them from their families. I understand how confronting it is as I was one such volunteer.</p>
<p>As a board member of the international NGO, <a href="http://forgetmenot.org.au/">Forget Me Not</a>, I helped establish and fund best-practice orphanages in Nepal and Uganda. However, upon discovering that the children in our care were <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/u-on-sunday-feature-the-lost-children/story-fn6ck8la-1226139832771">paper orphans</a>, the organisation focused on finding the families of the children and reintegrating them. </p>
<p>The organisation no longer funds orphanages, but focuses on rescuing children from exploitative orphanages and returning them to where they belong. This experience led me to research the <a href="http://www.podsocs.com/podcast/from-orphanhood-to-trafficked/">legal position</a> of paper orphans and how we might address the issue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74010/original/image-20150306-3306-1o7fwpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our involvement in orphanages supports the process by which these children become orphans, despite our good intentions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/petebackwards/429594883/in/photolist-bUXTKz-bUXTwV-DXNkN-cck9Uf-cckaqj-DXMAk-k3KhM-DXNqG-DXNx7-bUXVZM-bUXVnr-bUXTZT-DXMLw-DXNF3-DXMWT-DXNdi-DXN4H-8NxyYu-8Nut2z-8NxyEW-8NutvD-8NutgH-k3Czh-71ELVE-71AL8P-6pemvd-6pepEu-6paeMc-6peqRd-6pacdF-6peoAJ-6padU4-6penHG-6pekq7-8Ujwiz-7KWi1F-7KWi2n-aBg4Uj-aBdk8p-aBg6rU-aBdnJ8-aBg6ZN-aBdsgF-aBdn1z-aBdrhR-aBdkuk-aBg5Vd-aBg9DA-aBg8vE-aBdo4e">Flickr/Pete</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is the solution?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/resources/STC_keeing_children_out_of_insitutions_why_we_should_invest_in_family_based_care.pdf">research</a> points to family or community-based care being the solution. Orphanages are not the answer. Instead we should be returning children to <a href="http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/resources/Families_Not_Orphanages_J_Williamson.pdf">family-style care</a> and supporting families to keep their children at home. </p>
<p>Even where children are bona fide orphans, the research shows that orphanages are <a href="http://www.unicef.org/cambodia/12681_23295.html">never beneficial</a>. Community care is best.</p>
<p>There is clear evidence that volunteering and/or funding orphanages is <a href="http://www.nextgenerationnepal.org/File/The-Paradox-of-Orphanage-Volunteering.pdf">fuelling the demand</a> for paper orphans and orphanages. There is a movement to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/17/jk-rowling-fairytale-orphanage-lumos">close all orphanages globally by 2050</a> and awareness is growing about the <a href="http://www.bettercarenetwork.nl/content/17382/download/clnt/55412_Overview-_Volunteering_in_RCCs.pdf">harm that volunteering</a> and funding can do, despite the best of intentions.</p>
<p>UNICEF suggests that tourists and volunteers should <a href="http://www.unicef.org/cambodia/Fact_sheet_-_residential_care_Cambodia.pdf">refrain from visiting or donating</a> to orphanages. Instead, we should concentrate on supporting programs that encourage family reunification or community-based care.</p>
<p>Australian organisations like <a href="http://forgetmenot.org.au/who-we-are/our-story/">Forget Me Not</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/thehouseoftara/default.htm">Cambodia Children’s Trust</a>
both started out supporting orphanages, but after discovering the facts, have transformed their programs. These organisations are doing excellent work in reintegrating paper orphans with their families. </p>
<p>They are part of the new wave of NGOs focusing on supporting children within their family structures. Governments are also <a href="https://www.childfund.org.au/blog/response-head-first-episode-orphanage-tourism">actively working</a> with UN agencies and other NGOs to close orphanages and improve child protection mechanisms.</p>
<p>We know that orphanages harm children. We know these children deserve more than to be products of the orphanage business. It’s time to transform that knowledge into action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate van Doore is affiliated with Forget Me Not.</span></em></p>The number of orphanages in developing nations has dramatically increased in the past decade, but where are the “orphans” coming from?Kate van Doore, Lecturer in Law, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/380352015-02-26T19:30:03Z2015-02-26T19:30:03ZOrphanage trips by Aussie schools are doing more harm than good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73006/original/image-20150225-1758-1japttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian private schools are increasingly taking their senior students to volunteer in orphanages, but they're doing more harm than good.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/43207737@N07/8394703594">Lemuellz/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian private schools are <a href="http://www.ncc.qld.edu.au/curriculum/co-curriculum/mission-trips/">increasingly</a> taking their <a href="http://www.mlc.vic.edu.au/experience/trips-tours-and-exchanges">senior students</a> to <a href="http://www.as.edu.au/life-at-tas/leadership-service-and-adventure/thailand-service-trip/">volunteer in orphanages</a> <a href="http://www.cathedral.qld.edu.au/our-community/news-events/latest-news/item/34-schoolies-provide-a-shining-light-for-the-lighthouse-orphanage-in-cambodia/34-schoolies-provide-a-shining-light-for-the-lighthouse-orphanage-in-cambodia">in Asia</a>. During these trips students undertake maintenance or building work, but invariably they also spend time playing with the children in the orphanages. Schools see these visits as an opportunity for their students to help others and to gain perspective on their privilege.</p>
<h2>What do these trips mean for the children in orphanages?</h2>
<p>Before answering this question it’s important to understand what it is like for a child to grow up in an orphanage. <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/the-risk-of-harm-to-young-children-in-institutional-care">Decades of research</a> have proven that children need to be loved and cared for by a limited number of people who are dedicated to them and able to respond to their needs. This sort of care is very difficult to provide in an orphanage.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73007/original/image-20150225-1819-ox8v3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schools and students think they’re being charitable, but children aren’t tourist attractions made to make you feel warm and fuzzy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/76282222@N00/4405819923">Kim Tyo-Dickerson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The need to look after many children generally results in a regimented existence, with each child having many caregivers. Children are cared for as a group rather than as individuals. As a result children who have been raised in orphanages <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/the-risk-of-harm-to-young-children-in-institutional-care">experience delays across all areas of development</a>, as well as psychological damage. </p>
<p>Although Australia no longer has orphanages, some other wealthy nations do. Even in these well-resourced institutions, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14626461">the same problems exist</a>.</p>
<p>The lack of someone who loves and is committed to a child makes them vulnerable to exploitation. Rates of physical and sexual abuse (perpetrated by adults and other children) are high in orphanages, wherever they are located. It is unfortunately not surprising that <a href="http://www.royalcommission.org.au/2014.html">30% of the reports of sexual abuse</a> made to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have been made by people who were abused in orphanages.</p>
<p>Knowledge of the harms of orphanage care closed all orphanages in Australia decades ago.</p>
<h2>Orphanage voluntourism takes children from their families</h2>
<p>The majority of children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/20/aussie-do-gooders-tearing-families-apart">As recently reported</a>, orphanage voluntourism is actually removing children from their families. Unscrupulous individuals are <a href="http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforedonating/the-real-picture/">persuading families</a> to give up their children (<a href="http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/unicef-australia-blog/August-2014/Travel-tips-to-avoid-orphanage-tourism-and-protect.aspx">sometimes with a cash payment</a>) in order to make money for themselves from donations from wealthy foreign voluntourists.</p>
<p>They are literally creating orphans, for financial gain.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73009/original/image-20150225-1795-18b8s23.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A campaign to end orphanage voluntourism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some countries this has led to an explosion in the number of orphanages. In Cambodia the number of orphanages has doubled in the last five years, <a href="http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/unicef-australia-blog/August-2014/Travel-tips-to-avoid-orphanage-tourism-and-protect.aspx">while the number of orphans has decreased</a>.</p>
<p>Even when intentions are pure, the building and resourcing of orphanages results in the removal of children from their families. In the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Misguided_Kindness_3.pdf">17 new orphanages were built</a> for “tsunami orphans”. However, <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Misguided_Kindness_3.pdf">98% of the children</a> in these orphanages had families and had been placed in these institutions in order to gain an education. </p>
<p>Community support for education would have prevented these children from being exposed to harm in orphanages. Reputable aid organisations will not build orphanages, but instead work to support families and communities.</p>
<p>This is a much more caring and cost-effective model. Keeping children in orphanages is very expensive: <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Misguided_Kindness_3.pdf">five to ten times more expensive</a> than supporting them in their families.</p>
<h2>Orphanages are never good places</h2>
<p>Much of the psychological harm suffered by children in orphanages <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16332980">is caused by having multiple caregivers</a> who come and go, rather than just one (or a few) who can be relied upon. Short-term orphanage volunteers who pay attention to, play with and care for children may feel they are doing good, but they are just adding to this harm. They increase the number of caregivers a child experiences and are just more people who abandon them.</p>
<p>Children who live in orphanages often become adept at gaining adult attention by being cute and by engaging with strangers – something that psychologists call “<a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/06/neglect.aspx">indiscriminate affection</a>”. School students often mistake this behaviour for genuine friendliness and happiness. </p>
<p>Young people who undertake these tours come home with an idealised view of orphanages and with aspirations to support them into the future. This was the experience of ex-orphanage voluntourists, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/orphaned-by-boxing-day-tsunami-flipflop-kings-repay-sri-lankan-kindness-20141223-12d6kp.html">now successful entrepreneurs Rob and Paul Falkan</a>, who donate business profits to build orphanages all over the world. Schools who help foster the view that orphanages are good may inadvertently harm children into the future.</p>
<h2>So what should schools do?</h2>
<p>It is good that schools want to encourage their students to have a greater understanding of the world and to help others. But to quote the child rights organisation Friends International, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/aussie-do-gooders-tearing-families-apart/story-fn3dxiwe-1227229477564">children are not tourist attractions</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Children are not objects, they are not cute things you visit, feel sorry for, give pencils and teach them ‘heads and shoulders, knees and toes’ for the umpteenth time. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Schools should not be fooled into thinking that their arrangements are somehow different and exempt from these problems. </p>
<p>Instead of taking well-intentioned action that actually supports the abandonment, abuse and neglect of children in orphanages, schools should actively support aid programs that keep children in their families and that find foster care for children who do not have families.</p>
<p>Schools should investigate and support the many reputable aid organisations that focus on family preservation and the emptying of orphanages.</p>
<p>Students may like to start with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/17/jk-rowling-fairytale-orphanage-lumos">Lumos</a>, the organisation set up by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. Named for the spell in the books that casts light in dark places, Lumos aims to end orphanage care for children.</p>
<p>If schools want to take students overseas volunteering it may be appropriate to develop relationships with schools that would benefit from a sister school relationship.</p>
<p>Orphanage voluntourism takes children from their families and causes psychological damage. Australian schools have a responsibility to their students and to children in orphanages to inform themselves and ensure that their student activities are doing good and not harm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karleen Gribble does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australian private schools are increasingly taking their senior students to volunteer in orphanages, but they’re doing more harm than good.Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.