via Khmer NZ
By Katherine Marshall | August 9, 2010
There are few sadder fates than to be a child abandoned in Cambodia. Every day newspapers carry stories about trafficked children, harsh child labor, and abused children. Last week alone one report reminded readers where they could drop off unwanted babies (after a story of an abandoned baby), another recounted graphic details of the death of a woman after a a botched abortion, there were ongoing trials of pedophiles, and girls were rescued from brothels. Child mortality is still very high.
And orphanages are booming. Officially the numbers have doubled over roughly a decade but unofficial estimates suggest growth is even faster. This is occurring despite a consensus that orphanages should be a last resort and that children should stay in them for the shortest possible time. Research in many regions highlights the perils of institutional care for vulnerable children.
Apart from the real danger of abuse, most children who grow up in orphanages have great difficulty adjusting to life afterwards. A survey by Action Cambodia, a UK-based NGO, found story upon story of children in orphanages who did not have even the most basic life skills, like going to a market or making friends. Many children are terrified of what will happen to them after they leave: one described himself as a duck in a cage waiting to be cooked. Sarah Chin of Project SKYE, who has worked on these issues for a decade, has a raft of graphic stories of good intentions gone awry.
Children generally wind up in orphanages in one of three ways. The first is through the efforts of well-meaning benefactors from overseas who see children who look as if they have no one to care for them, and determine that an orphanage is the answer. Many of these have faith ties. Through church networks they raise funds, set up an institution and make genuine efforts to take good care of the children in their charge.
Another group of orphanages have a more businesslike spirit. Their founders are motivated more by the profit potential. Fund-raising for orphans is a comparatively easy sell.
Finally, a number of orphanages draw children because they offer food, clothing, and a relatively good education. Many of the children they serve are not orphans at all. Because schools in most rural areas lag far behind the city, and education costs money, families will falsely assert that their children are orphans. But then they cannot visit, and the trauma on the child is equal to actually becoming an orphan; either way, they have lost their parents.
Another troubling issue is a phenomenon termed "orphan tourism." Tours of orphanages are arranged for sympathetic visitors, and young children are asked to perform for them. Some orphanages offer the chance to volunteer and teach, with virtually no background checks on these very temporary helpers.
There are even reports that a few churches have started orphanages as a way to raise children in Buddhist Cambodia as Christians.
Cambodia's Ministry of Social Affairs takes a strong position that the best options for a child are care by the family, foster care or another community arrangement. New orphanages are strongly discouraged and oversight is being tightened. The strategy is to make orphanages unnecessary within ten years. The ministry is working with groups including UNICEF and International Cooperation Cambodia (a Christian organization) to train those working in orphanages in parenting skills, organizing youth groups, and teaching the older children life skills so they can survive when the time comes to leave the orphanage.
Cambodia is doing far better today than it was a decade ago. Buildings are sprouting everywhere, it seems, and the capital city's bustling streets and markets speak to a new prosperity. But poverty is still the harsh reality for most of Cambodia's 14.5 million people. They are the ones most likely to dump their children in orphanages, sometimes with the best of intentions.
Does a child have a greater right to a family or an education? How can dysfunctional families be healed in a country facing so many challenges? How can so many uncoordinated organizations be regulated by a government whose capacity is strained in every direction?
For now the solutions are to do whatever is possible to protect the children and look out for their welfare. But there remains a nagging suspicion that the resources lavished on orphanages could go a long way toward solving the underlying problems that send children to orphanages in the first place. That would be a far better use of the money. The good intentions that inspire people to give when their hearts are wrenched by the sorry image of a suffering child would translate into real hope for a good life for far more children.
Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue.
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