Grim story of orphans in India
By Rashmi Saksena
As India showcased its progress and military might during this year’s Republic Day parade at Rajpath, just a few kms away in the Walled City, on display was the country’s shame. An 11 year old orphan girl lay dead in one of its dank uncounted orphanages. The orphanage records stated death due to natural circumstances. But her autopsy report was horrifyingly different. The report showed that the girl had been repeatedly raped and forced into unnatural sex over several months.
This is a story coming in ever so often not only from orphanages in India but all quarters of the world. Evidence collected by leading international children’s rights organizations reveals that child care institutions have an appalling record of abuse and neglect. Orphanages are the worst possible care option for orphans who are definitely most vulnerable children. A report by UK based “Save the Children” says that “..orphanages can be dangerous and unregulated places where children are subject to abuse and neglect”. The revelation is not new. Even fiction has Oliver Twist and Annie. In the Victorian era England when child abandonment was rampant, “killing nurses” in orphanages silenced babies crying because of colic with a concoction of opium and treacle. Harm caused by institutional care is well documented since early 20th century.
Yet institutional care, that is orphanages and homes run by charities small and big, religious groups, faith based organizations and governments themselves, is India’s first choice response to children who have lost their parent or parents or abandoned because parents cannot afford to feed, clothe and educate them. Finding by international organizations show that four out of every five children in an orphanage or child care institute are not really orphans. They are children of parents who cannot afford to keep them in the family because of poverty, disease, disability, conflict, natural disaster and discrimination. For the Governments and donors placing such children in institutions is the most straightforward and easy solution. The Indian Government and society has paid scant heed to what child protection practitioners espouse and suggest to deal with the rising number of orphans in the world.
There is a consensus amongst child protection practitioners that nations should develop alternatives to orphanages to enable families and communities to provide care that gives every child the right to live. Institutional care should be the last resort and if resorted to a high standard should be ensured through certification, inspection and monitoring. The good news is that alternatives do exist. Models of family and community based care have been developed and child protection practitioners have agreed on how children should be properly cared for and protected.
In India, cases of exploitation of orphans in institutions make headlines every now and then. But the hidden headline is that India continues to look at orphanages as the best way to sweep orphans out of sight. A progressive and developed India has failed to look at contemporary alternatives like kinship care, foster care, adoption, and supported child-headed households and small group homes where six to eight children live in houses no different from others in the neighbourhood and are cared for in a family-like environment, being tried elsewhere in the world. Nor are government initiatives to build the capacity of families to look after their children proved good enough. According to a report by Save the Children Child Protection Initiative Task Force Group (2009), where there is a political will children can be well cared and protected. Indonesia has started widespread reforms to improve quality of care in institutions and make policies and shift resources to supporting children in their families. Sierra Leone has reunified many children with their families and Croatia has made structural and legal changes to give priority to community based care. South Africa on the other hand is building mechanisms to strengthen families and prevent unnecessary separation.
In India there is an obvious lack of political will and financial commitment to develop alternatives to hell holes and dens of exploitation that pass off as so-called homes for the care of orphans. Sadly there is a unchecked mushrooming of orphanages run by charities and religious groups all over the country. In fact there is no count of orphanages in India though to start one a license, registration and legal paperwork and funds is required. In fact orphanages and “homes” are seen as a way to make easy money by unscrupulous elements. There is no adequate infrastructure to inspect and monitor what goes on in these numerable institutions in the name of child care. It is no exaggeration to say that for every legal orphanage there are numerous illegal ones.
UNICEF put the number of orphans in India to 25 million in 2007. India is also home to largest number of AIDS orphans in the world. This is expected to double in the next five years. It is time for India to resolve to put an end to unnecessary and harmful use of institutional care and invest in alternatives in keeping with the new international “Guidelines for the Appropriate Use and Conditions of Alternative Care for children” finalized in 2009 by child protection practitioners after several years of consultation with governments and experts around the world. Otherwise sordid stories of child abuse, sexual exploitation and death of innocents in institutions of “care” will continue to put a blot on India’s record of progress and development. (IPA Service)
