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The Dim Global Picture for Orphaned and Abandoned Children

While abandoned and orphaned children have been found in almost all societies since antiquity, their scale today is unprecedented in human history. A 2004 joint report by UNAIDS, UNICEF and USAID estimates that there are 16 million orphans under the age of eighteen in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean alone. This number might seem somewhat tame, until one realizes that this does not include the additional 127 million “single orphans” – those children who have lost only one parent – in these regions. In a world where AIDS is a primary orphaning agent and 40+ million people are currently diagnosed with AIDS, many of those 127 million will soon loose their remaining parent.  Nor does it include the tens of millions of children who are either abandoned by their parents or forced (in many cases court-ordered) out of abusive homes. Unlike in Western countries, where resources and teams of social workers are available for children-at-risk, even the basic physical needs of orphaned children in developing countries go often unmet and increasingly ignored. Consequently, a growing number of orphans find themselves on the streets. 1996 UNICEF estimates of street children placed their numbers conservatively at around 100 million. This included 40 million in Latin America, 25 million in Asia, and 10 million in Africa. Of these 100 million, “only” 25 million of them are believed to live full-time on the streets. The rest spend most days working and many nights sleeping on the streets because of poverty, overcrowding, and domestic physical or sexual abuse. The causes of the street children pandemic are many. They include disease, war, poverty, natural disaster, exploding urbanization, and family disintegration. With the expanding onslaught of HIV/AIDS in Africa and now Asia and Latin America, forthcoming estimates are only expected to reflect an increase.

To make matters worse, the plight of these children has served as fertile ground for their exploitation:

• Police death squads, hired to “clean up” their cities, exterminate street children like rodents in some countries. An assassinated nine-year-old street child in Brazil was found with a note tied to his neck: “I killed you because you didn’t study and had no future….The government must not allow the streets of the city to be invaded by kids.” 
• According to Save the Children, approximately 200,000 child soldiers were believed to be enlisted in armies around the globe during the 1990s. Most of these are “drafted”, typically against their will, into child armies where they undergo intentional dehumanization. Some are forced at gunpoint to rape and murder other children as they are systematically taught to function as efficient killing machines.
• UNICEF estimated in 1996 that the number of children working full- and part-time on the streets was nearly 150 million and growing. That same year, the International Labor Organization reported that 120 million children (ages 5-14) worked full-time. Many of these work in sweatshops and brothels under horrid conditions, overworked and underpaid, sacrificing their childhoods in order to survive or support their impoverished families. According to International Justice Mission, there are an estimated 10-15 million children in India alone who are illegally “employed” as bonded slaves. They work 6 days a week, 12-14 hours a day, with no hope of ever buying their way out of slavery.
• The global child sex-trade is proficient. The World Congress Against Commercial Exploitation of Children estimates that over 10 million children are victims of the prostitution and pornography industries. Brazil accounts for as many as 500,000 child prostitutes. Thailand is believed to be home to another 800,000. Some of these children have been “bred” for the express purpose of being sold into brothel slavery. UNICEF estimates that each year, another 1 million children enter into prostitution. They do so, not for the lure of easy money, but rather simply to survive.

An unthinkable number of orphaned, abandoned and exploited children lack a caretaker that will provide for even their basic needs. Moreover, most of these children lack even an advocate that will speak up for them. They live in nations that are too poor to care for them, in societies that have long-sense stopped caring about them.

Anyone interested in learning more can contact us for additional information or refer to any of the excellent resources listed below:

• Butcher, Andy. Street Children: The Tragedy and Challenge of the World’s Millions of Modern-Day Oliver Twists.
• Dobrisan, Catalin, and John Kachelmyer. Odyssey of a Romanian Street Child.
• Guest, Emma. Children of AIDS: Africa’s Orphan Crisis.
• Kilbourn, Phyllis. Children in Crisis: A New Commitment.
• Children Rights Watch website
• Rainbows of Hope website