The National Situation Assessment Analysis estimates the number of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in the country to be 17.5 million. Majority of these children live in institutions – orphanages – and do not interact with the larger society. This has raised concerns on their ability to integrate properly with their fellow citizens when they leave the homes. However, this problem is not peculiar to Nigeria. Globally, there has been a drive for alternative care and de-institutionalisation of social care homes.
The need for alternative child care, specifically family-based care in Nigeria and other developing countries around the world is becoming crucial based on increasing reports and studies on the negative impact of institutional care on child welfare and development.
According to the Guidelines for Alternative Care for Children in Lagos State 2021, a publication of the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development, supported by SOS Children’s Villages, research and experience have shown that institutional care has negative effects on a child’s emotional, cognitive and intellectual development.
“Children are often not given the nurturing love and individual attention they need for their development and well being and for them to grow into resourceful adults. The damage is often more on children less than three years of age and this accounts for the prohibition of placement in institutions for that age range.
“Furthermore, inappropriate care, support and protection of children in some institutional care settings can lead to violations of their rights to participation, health and could suffer from discrimination, poor nutrition, poor sanitation and hygiene, violence, physical and sexual abuse including emotional abuse. They could be deprived of education and other social services,” the booklet notes.
Analysing the situation, the National President, Association of Orphanages and Home Operators in Nigeria (ASOHON), Gabriel Oyediji, stated that all over the world, there are 143 million children in need, out of which Nigeria has 17.5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
According to him, almost 90 per cent of children in this category are in private homes while the others are in government homes, adding that the accredited number of homes in the country is about 590.
He said: “There are different categories of children in the orphanages – the fully abandoned children, parental identification and recognition, children under care and protection due to legal, birth disputes. There could be maternal death and the father cannot take care, so he brings the child till another member of the family can do so.
“We also have the abused children who are passing through post-traumatic stress disorder and so they are brought to the orphanage to spend a period; afterwards, they are reunited with their family. So, basically, children come and go and the cases are different.”
“For a child who comes in at 10, it takes time for him or her to find his or her footing, especially in school. In another eight years, he is barely out of primary school and so we engage them in adult education. So, by the time they are asked to exit the home at age 18, they would have lost the privilege of going to school and they cannot proceed with life academically.
“In the developed world, the government has a lot of social care status and post institutional care. Here, ours is not defined and we need to strengthen this from the side of the government so these children do not continue to go through psychological trauma, join bad gangs or engage in taking substances that will tarnish their future,” he added.
Oyediji also noted that Nigeria has not learnt to deepen social care, saying: “A perfect example is that at the Child Protection Network, we were taught that a child whose right has been violated should report to the police and the parent gets arrested. While this has been achieved in some cases, the fact remains that if the father of the house has been arrested, who pays the rent, feeds the wife and other children, without the government providing palliatives for the family. This definitely doesn’t encourage disclosure because the consequences will fall back on them.
“In the past, we had a mediation mechanism where families would come to mediate and settle issues, before we decided to copy the westerners who have sustainable facilities to see children in distress through life.
“For us, an orphanage is not a place where a child should grow till adulthood; it should be a temporary shelter. In western society, people take up foster care as a job. The government ensures that they provide all the basic needs to help them train children in their care. But in Nigeria, there is nothing like that. Unfortunately, if you give people the opportunity, the parents themselves want to live in the orphanage.
“In my orphanage, I know how many people hang around my street everyday seeking assistance. They have not sorted their lives yet; how can they take care of other children?”
Oyediji gave the example of a boy in his orphanage that was picked up on the street and attended to till he regained consciousness.
“We took the children in the home on an excursion to Osun State and he recognised a bridge on our way and kept saying he could tell where he was from. So, I went to Mushin Police Station; with an officer we headed to Osun and he led us till we got to his house. After introducing himself, his grandmother screamed in excitement and in a short while people had gathered. They felt he had been used for ritual. We were told his father had died. We told them to come to Lagos and sign the necessary papers to get the boy integrated with them. As I speak, they never came back for him. I kept calling and they kept postponing when they would come. But then the obvious thing is that the boy looked better and the family’s economy is bad,” he submitted.
Oyediji disclosed that for children who are of age, he has constantly engaged the government on not letting them out in the streets having laboured for them over the years.
“Some of them are still in school, writing JAMB and WAEC. So what I do is to go to court and swear an affidavit of fact stating the relationship between me and these children, and that the relationship is symbiotic,” he added.
He disclosed that three of them had gotten married from the home and still considers it a figure home where their marital issues are dealt with.
“This is better than when we rush to push them out. There are some children that I let out of the home, particularly the boys, and when I see them afterwards, I wonder if they are the same people I let out. Their lives have gone from bad to worse and I tell myself, if I knew I wouldn’t have let them go,” he said.
Oyediji added that while alternative care is a good idea, family support, which includes access to good and affordable housing for women especially widows to fend for themselves and their children, is key to a saner society that would record less abandonment.
On her part, the founder and Director, Divine Heritage Children Centre, Ebun Idowu, stated that being a part of an international organisation based in Lousiana, United States, opened her eyes to how family care is crucial for children.
She said: “The organisation called Christian Alliance for Orphans believes that children are better raised or nurtured in the family than in an institution and we believe so too.
“While this is the ideal situation, poverty, parental neglect, divorce and more are responsible for this unsettlement. Our government doesn’t believe that a child should be put in a home due to poverty until that child is thrown away and we have to rescue the child, which then boils down to poverty from our findings.”
Buttressing why the family system is fundamental, Idowu added: “In an ideal family, you teach your child to run errands, take them along with you to the market and teach them other basic family values. But children in a home are not acquainted with these. People make their food for them. They are not opportune to have choices; what is given to them is what they take.
“So, we look forward to a time when Nigerians will be willing to take children into their homes. They must not be adopted. Staying in an ideal home means that you are willing to be father and mother to them. Neighbouring countries like Benin Republic and Ghana have started practicing this system and it is working. In these countries, what they do is that when children are found wandering the streets in a particular community, instead of putting them in a home, they engage the parents and empower the family to provide for the children. This goes a long way to help and we will have less children sleeping under the bridges and wandering in the markets.”
She noted that once families are strengthened to bear more loads financially, distressed children would be taken off the streets gradually. While emphasising that the government has a huge role to play in this regard, she noted that no financial support comes from the government to the over 70 orphanages in Lagos State.
“The government should be engaging and training us once in a while, but this never happens. Thankfully ASOHON has been doing their best and we are grateful.
“So, reintegration into families is key. This is what is obtainable globally and Nigeria has to join. Children belong to families and so it is possible to work on families to raise ideal children who will further impact society,” she added.
To the Coordinator of Child Protection Network (CPN) and Executive Director, Bimbo Odukoya Foundation, Aderonke Oyelakin, a child is an orphan when he or she does not have any family or relatives to care for him or her.
Oyelakin noted that the absence of a parental figure makes a child an orphan and vulnerable.
“It means that the child has no support system and those to provide for his or her basic needs. It could be as a result of death, disappearance, desertion or abandonment of the parents. A child may also be considered an orphan if the child has a widowed mother or a single living parent who cannot care for him or her and has released him or her irrevocably (permanently) for adoption and immigration.
“Since Nigeria is a developing country, it means some things need to be put in place to get things right. We actually have laws and policies in place. When a policy is fully implemented and enforced, it means that all efforts are on the state and non-state actors to ensure the laws work. For instance, the Child Right Act, which we have at the federal level, and which some states have domesticated, has provision for fostering and alternative care for children but it requires commitment and a lot more for such laws to be fully implemented.
“Remember, developed countries also have support for such cares. But in Nigeria, private homes are running all expenses by themselves and little or no support is given financially. The government should see how families could be strengthened. They should also reduce the approval for orphanages. They are rampant but they are still registering more,” Oyelakin advised.
She stressed that the recently launched alternative care guidelines, which SOS Children’s Villages pioneered, was a right step in the right direction.
With orphanages as temporary places for orphaned/homeless children to stay in before adoption, Oyelakin said the system usually caters to children who are taken away from families due to emotional trauma, abuse or neglect.
“Instead of a state-run facility, orphans live in private homes where voluntary foster parents provide them a healthy and wholesome family environment. It includes giving them food, shelter, clothes and education.
“Looking at the economic situation in the country, how many families can actually care for other children holistically without support? The process of approval for fostering should also be made easy to encourage families. And with little support, this can actually achieve the purpose of fading away orphanages,” she added.
Oyelakin stressed that these children are vulnerable and need shelter among other material and emotional support.
“So how do we go about this if there is no institutionalised care system with a holistic care plan? The government cannot solve all their problems. So, in the absence of institutionalised care, they become victims of social vices and might later become perpetrators of such vices.
“To give holistic care involves resources and this brings me to the main challenge of every orphanage, which is finance. To give any child in your care education, it is money. To give a good and balanced meal requires consistent food supplies and this must be adequate as you know children will always demand for the best irrespective of whether they are in a care home or with their families. Most orphanages would prefer to send their wards to a private school to avoid marginalisation and stigmatisation.
“For stakeholders of private homes, the decision to send children to public schools is due to shortage of funds as public schools can also expose kids to bullying and other vices, which can make them more sensitive about their backgrounds,” Oyelakin noted.
A key driver of alternative care in Nigeria is the SOS Village in Isolo, Lagos State.
A source in the organisation explained: “We are not an orphanage. We are called a village because we engage in family strengthening and alternative care services for orphans and vulnerable children. Within our organisation, we believe that when children are in need of care, it is best to grow in a family setting. If their parents are late, then their relatives can be contacted so that they have memories of their family with them.
“Alternative care is important so that children can have a sense of belonging, and have a reference point. If children are not properly placed in the right care, they might lose their value and cultural heritage completely. This helps them live with parental guidance, grow in love, respect, security and have a reference figure.”
The Guardian learnt that in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development, the SOS Village has rolled out alternative care services in the state.
The source, who spoke under anonymity, added: “One of the reasons we have huge crime rate is that most of these children grow alone, without parental care and support, hence we focus on family strengthening which is a preventive form of protecting children, while the curative is the alternative care because it is a fallout from families who cannot cater for themselves, not to talk of their children. So, when we identify these vulnerable families, they go through scrutiny and are enrolled in our one-year programme, where we empower and monitor them to further reach out to their families.
“The children who grow in our care are raised by real mothers whose full time job is to cater for them. They are allowed to live at a location of their choice in the society and they get paid for taking care of the children. For us, the concern is that these children grow in a wholesome environment, feel the love, care and warmth of a father, mother and siblings so that by the time they are old enough – at age 23 – we settle them to be on their own and also follow up.
“More importantly, SOS is keen on the family reunification and reintegration process, hence efforts are made to locate their families for those who were abandoned or picked up. We want to ensure that no child grows outside his biological space if possible.”
