Children Affected by Poverty and Social Exclusion

Around the world, poverty and social exclusion are driving factors behind the placement of children into alternative care. Families give up their children because they are too poor to care for them, or they feel that it is the best way to help them to access basic services such as education and health care. Discrimination and cultural taboos mean that girls, children with disabilities, ethnic minorities, children with HIV/AIDS and children born out of wedlock, make up a disproportionate number of children abandoned into alternative care.

Poor-quality alternative care leads to a vicious cycle of poverty and inequality. With limited family-based alternative care options in many countries, children often end up in institutional care. Already marginalized by poverty or stigmatization, they risk becoming further excluded from society, as they grow up separated from their families and communities. In the worst cases, inadequate or unsafe care standards expose them to neglect, violence and abuse. When they eventually leave institutional care, young adults may then struggle to reintegrate into their communities and face high rates of homelessness, unemployment, chronic poverty, depression and even suicide.

Greater political and financial commitment is needed to tackle the poverty and social exclusion that drives families to give up their children. This includes wide-ranging measures to combat poverty, discrimination and stigmatization, to change attitudes towards single parenthood and disability, and to adopt social policies promoting family empowerment and parenting skills. Greater priority must also be given to developing good-quality family-based care options, such as foster care and adoption, for the girls and boys who need alternative families.

The documents in this section examine the relationship between poverty, social exclusion and placement of children in alternative care.

Displaying 301 - 310 of 498

Browse Other Topics

"Skirt? Nope, not for me!" Sexual and gender self-determination for children and youth in alternative care settings

Dreilinden gGmbH / SOS Children’s Villages International, 01 Apr 2016

This issue paper explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) children and young people in alternative care settings and highlights some promising practices.

Researching the linkages between social protection and children’s care in South Africa: The Child Support Grant and Foster Child Grant and their effects on child well-being and care

Keetie Roelen, Helen Karki Chettri, Suzanne Clulow, Camilla Jones, Payal Saksena and Emily Delap - Family for Every Child, 01 Apr 2016

This report presents research on the impact of two cash transfer programs for vulnerable children in South Africa on children’s care.

Migration, Remittances and Nutrition Outcomes of Left-Behind Children: A National-Level Quantitative Assessment of Guatemala

Jason Davis, Noli Brazil - PLoS ONE, 24 Mar 2016

This investigation into economic migration of Guatemalan parents shows that the timing of migration events in relation to left-behind children’s ages has important, often negative and likely permanent, repercussions on the physical development of their children.

View Article

Education for children in sub-Saharan Africa: Predictors impacting school attendance

Jini L. Roby, Lance Erickson, and Chanel Nagaishi, 04 Mar 2016

Large scale studies published in the 1990s and early 2000s generally showed that significant educational disparities existed based on orphan status and a child's relationship to the head of the household. Since the data relied on by these studies were collected, the global community has conducted major campaigns to close these gaps, through the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This study examined these factors using eight country-years from five sub-Saharan African countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Uganda, and Zimbabwe).

View Abstract

In Care, Out of Trouble

Prison Reform Trust, 2016

This review was established to examine the reasons for, and how best to tackle, the over representation of children in care, or with experience of care, in the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

Successful family reintegration of street-connected children: application of attachment and trauma theory

Anita Schrader-McMillan; Elsa Herrera - Journal of Children's Services; Vol. 11 Iss: 3, 2016

This is a 15 month qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with families and boys at three stages: preparing for return, in the first three months of reintegration and successfully reintegrated.

Families in the economic crisis: Changes in policy measures in the EU

Eurofound, 2016

This report describes the situation and experience of families during the economic crisis and examines how family-focused policies have changed since 2010 in the European Union.

Socio-Economic, Demographic and Cultural Characteristics of Street Adolescents In Mumbai

Dattaram Dhondu Naik – Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2016

This is an explorative study undertaken in central and south part of the Mumbai with the objective of investigating socio-economic, demographic and cultural characteristics of street adolescents in Mumbai.

View Article

Every Last Child: The children the world chooses to forget

Faiza Shaheen, Jonathan Glennie, Amanda Lenhardt, José Manuel Roche and Lucia Cizmaziova - Save the Children, 2016

This report tells the story of “forgotten children,” children who are relegated to the margins of society due to discrimination and subjected to the hardships of poverty. The report is aimed at identifying what is required to meet the needs of these children and to ensure their basic rights to survive and thrive, to learn, and to be protected.