Most people view orphanages as a happy environment that provides care and support to children who have nowhere else to go. Some are even aware of the appalling conditions in which these children live in, but still believe that it is a ‘necessary evil’. If not for orphanages, where would all the orphans go? Orphanages seem like the easy route, but what we don’t realize is that these ‘orphanages’ stunt the physical, mental, and emotional development of a child.
The lack of individual care and attention foils brain development in children. They do not forge bonds with any individual, and therefore any emotional progress is suppressed at an early age. A child in a family would have already forged a strong emotional bond with its mother, while a child in an orphanage competes for the individual attention that they so desperately need. An orphanage does not offer the safe, secure and stimulating childhood that a family would provide. The education that these children receive does not compensate for the reality of being cut off from the outside world. Most of these children find themselves ill prepared to face any struggle outside the gates of the orphanage.
Research has proven that children in orphanages experience developmental delays. Some are physically stunted and some have even experienced psychological trauma. These developmental delays manifest very negatively as the children get older. Because they did not have an emotional attachment in their childhood, these orphans find it difficult to express emotions and form attachments in their adulthood.
Lumos, a charity founded by J.K. Rowling, works towards eradicating orphanages in favor of community based services that would enable families to take care of their children. Lumos works to help millions of children regain their right to a caring family. During her conversation with Eddie Redmayne at Carnegie Hall, J.K. Rowling stated that children who grow up in institutions are six times more likely to have been abused, ten times more likely to enter into prostitution, forty times more likely to have a criminal record and five hundred times more likely to commit suicide. These predictions come from years of research.
What most people do not know is that most of the children that live in child care institutions (80% to be exact) do, in fact, have family members that would be able to care for them if given the proper resources to do so. Some families only leave their children in orphanages because they do not have the means to look after them. Orphanages promise education, food and safety, and parents believe that their child will be well looked after. We now know that this is not true. Orphanages make institutionalization seem like the only way for the child to survive- this persuades parents to give up their children. Orphanages in disaster zones and poor countries actually receive an amount of money for every child they take in. This turns it into a business, and children are essentially trafficked for a profit.
As J.K. Rowling stated, this is an entirely solvable problem. First, the 8 million children who currently live in institutions need to removed and placed into caring families. Second, orphanages need to be eradicated so that more children are not forced to enter into that environment.
With the better channeling of funds, community based services, such as free schools and free clinics, can be established. These services would give families the money and resources to take care of their own children. Lumos works with people within the communities to establish this system by providing funding and offering help.
Lumos is a charity worth supporting as it works hard to place children into families, where they will receive the care and attention that institutions cannot provide. Institutionalizing children is not an act of kindness- it is, in fact, a tremendously damaging act.
People need to become aware of the reality of institutions so that money, that is so generously donated to institutions, can be used to place children in a family environment.
Understand the issue. Support Lumos in any way possible. Institutions are not conducive to child development.
