EMMA BATHA, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on growing moves to address “orphan trafficking” around the world…
After Australian lawyer Kate van Doore set up an orphanage in Nepal and took over another in Uganda she was astounded to find that the children she thought she was helping were not orphans at all.
They were “paper orphans” – children given fake identities after being taken from their families and placed in orphanages to attract funding from foreign donors, volunteers and tourists.
“The kids started saying to us, ‘Can I go home to mum now?’,” said van Doore who runs the charity Forget Me Not.
“It was devastating to discover these children had been exploited for profit. I was horrified and determined to fix it,” said van Doore, who spoke about orphanage trafficking at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Conference on Wednesday.
Australian lawyer Kate van Doore, who co-founded the Forget Me Not charity in Nepal, poses for a photo in 2011 with Jitken who was trafficked into the orphanage, at the charity’s former orphanage in Kathmandu. PICTURE: Shannon Galasso
About 80 per cent of an estimated eight million children in orphanages or other institutions are not orphans, according to Lumos, a charity founded by Harry Potter author JK Rowling, which aims to have no children living in institutions by 2050.
Traffickers have worked out that orphanages are good business and can attract large donations, leading to a global boom in orphanages, from Cambodia to Haiti, which often lure children from poor rural families with promises of an education.
MOST CHILDREN IN ORPHANAGES ARE NOT ORPHANS
Millions of children around the world live in orphanages, but child rights experts say most are not orphans.
Orphanages have become a lucrative business in developing countries, attracting generous funding. This has led to the trafficking of children to fill them, according to charities Forget Me Not and Lumos.
The two charities, which presented talks at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Conference in London on Wednesday, are calling for an end to orphanages which they say cause immense harm to children.
Here are some facts:
• An estimated eight million children live in orphanages and other institutions worldwide, but 80 per cent are not orphans.
• Research shows orphanages harm children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development.
• Institutionalisation of very young children has a similar impact on early brain development to severe malnutrition or maternal drug use during pregnancy.
• Young adults raised in institutions are 10 times more likely to fall into sex work than their peers, and 500 times more likely to take their own lives.
• Placing a child in an orphanage quadruples the risk of sexual violence.
HAITI
• The number of orphanages in Haiti jumped by at least 150 per cent following the 2010 earthquake.
• Some 30,000 children live in 750 orphanages in Haiti, but Haiti’s government estimates 80 per cent have at least one living parent.
• Only 15 per cent of orphanages are registered.
• Lumos estimates that funding to all Haitian orphanages is upwards of $US100 million a year.
• Its research suggests 92 per cent of orphanage funders are from the United States, and 90 per cent are faith-based.
• Institutional care is four times more expensive than providing health, education and social support to keep a child in its family.
CAMBODIA
• Cambodia has promised to return thousands of children in orphanages to their families.
• A survey published in 2017 found 16,579 children living in 406 orphanages with nearly 10,000 more living in other care facilities. Most had at least one living parent.
• The number of orphanages jumped by about 60 per cent between 2005 and 2015, and the number of children in them by nearly 80 per cent.
• The growth in orphanages comes despite a decline in the number of genuine orphans.
• Half of orphanages are in the capital Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, both tourist destinations.
“VOLUNTOURISM”
• The growth in orphanages is fuelled by tourism, including “voluntourism” where people work short stints in orphanages.
• Orphanage volunteering is a concern in at least 18 countries including Cambodia, Nepal, and Uganda.
• Countries such as the United States, Britain and Australia are major contributors to the supply of volunteers.
• The continuous rotation of volunteers harms children psychologically, leading to attachment issues in adult life.
• There is often no screening of volunteers, leaving children vulnerable to sexual abuse.
• Australia is the first country to recognise orphanage tourism as a form of slavery.
Sources: Lumos, Forget Me Not, Save the Children, UNICEF
– EMMA BATHA, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Van Doore said the female pastor running the Ugandan orphanage had given the children fake identities after promising to educate them but kept them in a “pitiful condition” to boost funding. Many had malaria and were malnourished.
In Kathmandu, Forget Me Not discovered the orphanage had shown them fraudulent death certificates for the children’s parents and told the children to lie.
“There were terrible stories of families coming to the gate and the child watching from the window as they were turned away,” said van Doore, an international child rights lawyer and academic at Griffith Law School in Australia.
Forget Me Not has since helped rescue hundreds of children from orphanages in Nepal. It has reunited many with their parents and is caring for others while their families are found.
Van Doore is now calling for an end to orphanages which she says cause irreparable harm to children and fuel trafficking, pushing the Australian and British governments to lead on this.
Trafficking survivor Joseph Mwuara, 20, told Trust Conference how an orphanage owner near his home village in Kenya took him from his grandmother, promising to educate him.
“It was terrible. We had to do a lot of work to get food. If we failed we were denied food as punishment,” he said.
When people visited the orphanage with donations the children were made to entertain them, but the gifts they brought for the children were sold.
Mwuara said the children were forced to milk the orphanage owner’s cows, clean the sheds and till surrounding farmland.
“They used a lot of physical violence. They beat one boy and broke his leg,” added Mwuara, who now raises awareness about orphanage trafficking and mentors children leaving care.
“Everybody at the orphanage had a family. We needed love.”
The US State Department first identified orphan trafficking as a form of modern slavery in a 2017 report.
It said the industry was fuelled by demand from tourists to visit or volunteer in orphanages, often for a fee or donation.
Many orphanages are set up in tourist spots. Some make children perform shows, send them out to beg, or force them into labour or sexual exploitation, it said. A lack of screening of volunteers places children at risk of sexual abuse.
The constant rotation of volunteers also creates serious attachment problems, which impact their relationships as adults.
Experts say even well-run orphanages are detrimental to children’s psychological, cognitive and physical development.
Snezana Vuckovic, 24, who grew up in orphanages in Serbia, said she was raped by a teacher, bullied and beaten.
“We were hit. We were really tortured,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the conference. “I still wake up in the night crying and shaking. I push people away from me.”
Forget Me Not and Lumos want to redirect funding from orphanages into family and community-based care for children.
Australia, which is due to introduce a Modern Slavery Act this month, is the first country to recognise orphanage trafficking as a form of modern slavery and will put pressure on travel companies to end orphanage tourism.
Van Doore said she is also in talks with British officials.
“If people knew the harm they caused by funding, volunteering and visiting orphanages it would have a real impact. We need to get that message out,” she said.
This story has been edited since first published to remove repeated paragraphs.
