Hanoi (VNA) - Expanding alternative care is part of the national targetprogram launched by the Vietnamese Government to ensure disadvantaged children inthe country are able to grow up in a family environment.

Therevised Child Law2016, enacted on June 1, 2017, introduced legislative supportfor foster care, said Vu Thi Kim Hoa, Deputy Director of the Department ofChild Affairs under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs(MoLISA).

“Therevision aims to ensure the enforcement of children’s rights in accordance withthe spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), and thecountry’s response to international efforts to reduce institutional childcareworldwide,” Hoa said.

As partof its effort to implement the law, in July 2017, the Ministry signed a three-yearcooperation agreement with Care for Children (CFC), a UK non-governmentalorganisation (NGO), to push the implementation of foster care in Vietnam.

The fostercare project, jointly implemented by the Ministry and CFC from November 2017, showsVietnam’s determination to ensure the enactment of children rights,particularly the right to foster care, Hoa said.

Thefour-phase project is being piloted in Hanoi and the northern province of ThaiNguyen up to 2020.

Itfocuses on training and providing consultation for governmental staff andsocial workers in the two localities,while conducting publicity campaigns toraise community awareness on the positive social outcomes of family-based care.

Global issue of institutionalised children

Atleast 2.7 million children are living in institutions worldwide.

Thefigure was described as the tip of the iceberg by UNICEF in its press release onJune 1, 2017.

Widegaps in data collection and accurate records are found in a majority ofcountries, the press release stated.

Elsewhere,the Save the Children Fund, an international NGO to promote children rights, (akaSave the Children), estimates a staggering number of up to 8 million childrenliving in institutions worldwide, with more than 90 percent having at least oneliving parent.

Meanwhile, Step Ahead, an international NGO based in Thailand’s capital city, reportsover 145 million children worldwide have lost one or both parents due to a varietyof causes.

Both the short-term and long-term wellbeing of a child depends greatlyon where they live and the care they receive in those settings, said John QuinleyJr., Step Ahead CEO.

He quoted researches as saying that the long term care of young children in orphanages is associated with attachment disorders and developmental delays in social, behavioural, and cognitive functions.

Step Ahead serves the CRC Coalition’s Alternative Care sub-committee, the International Child Protection Network Advisory Panel, to ensure the best interests of children.

According to UNICEF’s new estimate, based on data from 140 countries, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia was found to have the highest rate worldwide, with 666 children per 100,000 living in residential care, over 5 times the global average of 120 children per 100,000.

Industrialized countries and East Asia and the Pacific region have the second and third largest rate with 192 and 153 children per 100,000 respectively.


Research shows some of the key risk factors that result in children being placed in residential care include family breakdowns, health issues, poor or unequal provision of social services, disability, and poverty.

“The priority is to keep children out of institutional care and with their families, especially in the early years,” said Cornelius Williams, Associate Director of Child Protection at UNICEF. 

In more developed countries, the practice of placing children in institutions is fading out.

However, efforts to expand community-based care for homeless and orphaned children continue to face numerous challenges in developing nations.

Regional efforts

Step Ahead is in active partnership with the CRC Coalition Thailand, delivering policies, procedural training, and ensuring the implementation of alternative care for orphans and vulnerable children.

In 2009, Step Ahead launched its Keeping Families Together (KFT) programme, aiming to boost alternative care for Thai vulnerable children and orphans.

“Alternative care means children separated from their biologicalparents living in other care arrangements, such as kinship care, foster care,and residential care,” said John.

“Seventy percent of children in orphanages in Thailand actually havefamily, but sadly, poverty forces these families to place their children in theinstitutions,” John told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA).

“KFT’s vision is that no Thai child will grow up in institutional care,rather that all will enjoy life in a safe and nurturing family,” he added.

Likewise, Kinnected Myanmar,an NGO established in 2014, also forms part of regional NGO efforts toreintegrate local institutionalised children into family-based care.

“Orphanages are not the bestplaces for children and can cause long-term mental and emotional harm”, said JoneyThawng Hup, Director of Kinnected Myanmar.

Many of them harbour anddevelop strong feelings of abandonment. Those sent away from their homes alsoface other serious risks, such as human trafficking, he said.

According to Joney, manydesperate parents in Myanmar choose to put their children into orphanages withthe hope that they will receive better food, clothing, and education.

Over 74 percent ofinstitutionalised children in the country have living parents, said Joney ThawngHup.

In a similar effort,Children in Families (CIF), a Cambodian NGO, works on providing direct servicesto Cambodian orphans and vulnerable children by placing them in kinship careand foster care, as well as extra services for children with special needs.

General Manager of CIF LynnySor has told VNA that CIF was established and registered in 2009. As of now,CIF has helped 671 children by providing financial support, training tofamilies, as well as follow-up visits by case workers on a monthly basis toensure that children are provided with proper care in loving families.

Based on CIF careexperience, family-based care is much more cost-effective than institutionalcare, being likely to cost at least five times less than keeping a child ininstitutional care.

According to Sor, over 80percent of Cambodian institutionalised children are not orphans and have atleast one living parent. The Cambodian Government is working actively with NGOpartners, aiming to reduce the rate by 30 percent this year.

In order to reduce thisfigure, CIF is providing direct support services to children and families, aswell as providing technical support on alternative care to NGOs and residentialcare institutions, engaging them to make efforts to ensure more children (includingchildren in residential care) are being reintegrated back into families and nomore children are being referred to residential care institutions.-VNA