Dublin, 20 November 2024: This World Children’s Day, the Comhlámh End Orphanage Volunteering Campaign has come together with international advocates to urge schools across Ireland, teachers, parents, and students to Say NO to Orphanage Visits and make choices that protect vulnerable children globally. The campaign highlights the harm associated with orphanage volunteering and institutional care, advocating for child-centred, family-based care reform instead.
To amplify this message, the campaign has invited two international experts to Ireland: Dr Kate van Doore, a child rights lawyer from Australia, and Katharina Thon, a global advocate for family-based care. Dr van Doore explained: “Orphanage visits, while well-intentioned, unfortunately, contribute to a system that places children at risk. Children belong in families, not institutions, and it’s our responsibility to support family-based solutions.”
Supported by 45 organisations—including Ireland’s three main teacher unions, as well as Educate Together and WorldWise Global Schools—the campaign is calling on the Department of Education to establish child-safe guidelines for school trips overseas. These guidelines would include specific advice against visiting or volunteering in orphanages, aligning with existing guidance from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which warns of the exploitation risks linked to orphanage volunteering.
Fiachra Brennan, Comhlámh’s co-convener of the campaign, said: “Schools across Ireland have a unique opportunity to lead the way in promoting ethical practices. Around the world, 80% of children in orphanages have at least one living parent, and many more have extended family members who could care for them with the right support. Research shows that institutional care negatively affects children’s development, education, and well-being. Children raised in institutions are at risk for developmental delays, lower education outcomes, and abuse. In Cambodia, orphanages increased by 75% between 2005 and 2010, largely due to the demand for overseas visits. By avoiding orphanage visits and associated fundraising, schools across Ireland can help reduce the demand that drives unnecessary institutionalisation.” Brennan added: “This campaign reflects Ireland’s growing commitment to family-based care and calls on schools to champion approaches that truly uphold children’s rights.”
To mark World Children’s Day on November 20th, the Comhlámh End Orphanage Volunteering Campaign will host the Say No to Orphanages – Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building Workshop. Featuring Dr van Doore and Katharina Thon, the workshop aims to raise awareness among individuals and organisations about the harm caused by orphanage visits and volunteering, and to explore values-based responses that support family-based care.
You can learn more about the campaign at https://comhlamh.org/volunteering-and-orphanage-care/
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NOTES TO THE EDITOR:
- About Comhlámh: Established in 1975, Comhlámh is the Irish Association of International Development Workers and Volunteers. As a membership organization, we build and mobilise community around global justice issues. Comhlámh nurtures and supports work for change, locally and globally, and advocates for a world beyond injustice.
- Members of the End Orphanage Volunteering Working Group include: Comhlámh, Misean Cara, Nurture Africa, See Beyond Borders and Tearfund Ireland.
- About the experts:
- Dr Kate van Doore is a child rights lawyer, Deputy Head of School at Griffith Law School in Brisbane, Australia, and an internationally recognised expert on orphanage trafficking.
- Katharina Thon is the Programme and Capacity Building Officer at the OSCE Office of the Special Representative and a Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking of Human Beings. Katharina works to research and raise public awareness about the close connections between orphanages, orphanage visits and volunteering, and the trafficking and exploitation of children.
- Read about the Say No to Orphanages – Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building Workshop.
- Read the campaign’s Put Children First: End Orphanage Care Recommendations to End Orphanage Volunteering and the Institutionalisation of Children document, which provides the background and rationale for each of the below policy asks:
Recommendation 1: Irish Aid should introduce a dedicated funding stream for care reform strategies, including family and community-based support programmes.
Recommendation 2: The Department of Foreign Affairs should introduce foreign travel advice warning of the harm caused by orphanage volunteering (including the risk of incentivising trafficking) and encouraging people not to visit or volunteer.
Recommendation 3: Irish Aid should recognise the harm of orphanage volunteering and introduce funding criteria that no programmes or activities that involve the sending of volunteers to orphanages will be supported.
Recommendation 4: The Departments of Education and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth should develop child-safe guidelines for trips overseas, including guidance not to visit or volunteer in orphanages.
- About the Put Children First: End Orphanage Care and Volunteering campaign
- See the full list of campaign endorsers (including teachers’ unions)
- Sign the campaign Pledge here.
- KEY FACTS AND RESEARCH:
- An estimated 5.4 million children live in institutions worldwide, primarily because of poverty, lack of access to health and education services, and discrimination. Read the research.
- More than 80% of children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. They have extended family members and communities that could care for them, given the right support. Look at the global picture.
- Research has shown that orphanage care is harmful to children, resulting in significant delays in physical growth and brain development, causing social and emotional difficulties, and exposing children to neglect and abuse.
- Reports highlight that the regular turnover of volunteers and visitors to orphanages is harmful to children’s development and wellbeing and increases their exposure to abuse and exploitation.
- Global care reform movement: There is now a growing global movement working to keep families together and to gradually close down orphanages, replacing them with family support services and alternatives such as foster and kinship care when necessary. This movement includes UN bodies and governments, NGO’s, child protection specialists and care experts with lived experience.
- United Nations General Assembly Resolution: Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children A/74/395 (undocs.org)
- Rethink Orphanages Orphanage Research