Read below to learn about the different ways that orphanages harm children – and what we mean when we say ‘orphanage’ or ‘institution’.
What do we mean by ‘institution’?
We use the word ‘institution’ a lot. But what do we actually mean? When referring to children, the word ‘institution’ covers a range of care facilities. These might be called ‘orphanages’, ‘orphanages’, ‘child care centres’, ‘baby homes’, ‘children’s homes’, or even ‘rescue centres.’ So, what links all these institutions together?
According to agreed international definitions, an institution is any residential setting where children and young people are subjected to an ‘institutional culture’. And what’s an ‘institutional culture’? In short, it’s the opposite of a loving, family home.
Inside orphanages, young people experience depersonalisation, a lack of freedom, support or personal attention. The care’s never consistent or permanent. They’re excluded from their wider community, culture, and traditions. Sometimes, they’re not even allowed to go outside. Even the best orphanages can’t give the one thing children need more than anything to grow up happily. Love.
And what’s the worst bit? 80% of children in institutions are not even ‘orphans’.
The harm of institutions
The consequences of living in an orphanage are devastating. And there’s nearly a century’s worth of research to prove it.
Around the world, children growing up in orphanages experience violence, abuse and neglect. It’s not right, and it needs to stop. Let’s get children back to family.
Neglect and abuse
Evidence shows that the delivery of care and protection in an orphanage is inadequate. Children require individualised care and attention – which they cannot receive in an institutional setting. Neglect is a feature of the system, putting children at increased risk of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
“The use of physical restraints, isolation and solitary confinement occur in some institutions… in some instances amounting to torture.”
The UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty
Physical and psychological harm
A long-term study, The Bucharest Early Intervention Project, examines the effects of early institutionalisation on brain and behaviour development. The results are stark.
Children who grow up in institutions show cognitive and developmental delays, as well as decreased brain activity and a greatly elevated incidence of psychiatric disorders. Children under the age of three are particularly vulnerable to the effects of institutionalisation. Depending upon how long they spend in an institution, the consequences can last a lifetime.
“I walked into an institution in Bucharest one afternoon, and there was a small child standing there sobbing. He was heartbroken and had wet his pants. I asked, ‘What’s going on with that child?’ A worker said, ‘Well, his mother abandoned him this morning and he’s been like that all day.’ That was it. No one comforted the little boy or picked him up. That was my introduction.”
Prof. Charles A. Nelson III, Lead researcher for the Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Social Isolation
Institutions don’t foster meaningful relationships between children and their family. Siblings are often split up, sometimes to different orphanages miles away. Children can then spend their whole childhoods within the confines of an institution. When they grow up, they can be stigmatised and perceived as ‘different’, which then leads to further social isolation. But every child deserves to belong. To have community. To find their way back to family.
“Children [are] being confined and cut off from communities, having limited or no contact with their families, often placed far away from where they live.“
The UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty
Systemic Impact
The very existence of orphanages creates a ‘pull effect’. They offer local authorities and professionals an ‘easy’ option for dealing with children and families in crisis. Sometimes, sending children to an orphanage is wrongfully thought to be the safest option – for example, for children with additional needs or children living with disability. Parents lacking information, counselling and access to medical and support services will often turn to institutions as their only available option. Similarly, it is not uncommon for one child from a family to be sent to an orphanage so they can access education. Instead of bringing strength back to family, orphanages take it away.
Voluntourism and the ‘orphanage economy’
Sadly, children in orphanages are often exploited as ‘attractions’ for tourists and volunteers. The result? An ‘orphanage economy’ all around the world.
Many people who volunteer in orphanages are well-intentioned. However, this kind of ‘voluntourism’ is extremely harmful. AIt actively encourages child trafficking, as children are taken away from their families to fill up orphanages for tourists.
It also creates attachment problems in children who become close to short-term visitors, visitors who eventually leave – never to return. In other cases, it directly exposes children to physical and sexual abuse.
No matter what, children deserve loving homes. Together, we can bring them back to family.
