The blaze of publicity surrounding Madonna’s whirlwind adoption of a 13-month-old Malawian boy and her plans to create a facility to care for 4 000 orphans have raised deeper questions about how best to care for Africa’s vulnerable children.
By 2010, there will be 18-million African children who will have lost at least one parent to Aids, according to estimates by the United Nations.
African childcare specialists say the most effective way to cope with this pressing problem is to support communities and extended families to enable them to care for the children.
“No one believes that either foreign adoptions or institutions are the best way to care for Africa’s vulnerable children,” said Dr Greg Powell, Harare paediatrician and chairperson of Zimbabwe’s Child Protection Society. “How can those be solutions for Africa’s millions of orphans? What cultural alienation will those solutions create? The best way is to keep children in their extended families and within their communities.”
Powell said Zimbabwe’s Child Protection Society is working in communities to establish child protection committees across Zimbabwe. “We are training community leaders to watch out for vulnerable children and take measures to support them within their communities,” said Powell. “We are trying to provide food, clothes, blankets and school fees to families that are taking care of orphans and vulnerable children. This is how foreign donors and individuals can help.”
Powell said the projects try to reach all vulnerable children, not just orphans. “For instance, orphans can be further stigmatised if they are the only children at school with uniforms and shoes and the others are in rags. We identify vulnerable children who are deserving of support. We work to build the capacity of communities to help children. We are opposed to rich donors using their funds to take children out of their communities and placing them in institutions, where foreign faiths and culture will be imposed on vulnerable children.”
Foreign adoptions have long been a big business in the United States, with about 22 000 children being adopted last year, mostly from China, Russia and Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s well-organised and relatively easy process has seen thousands adopted every year. Adoption agencies in Ethiopia have burgeoned in the past two years from about five to more than 20. Several new adoption agencies have also been established in Liberia.
But many African childcare organisations are wary of foreign adoptions. “First prize is to find substitute families within the community for children,” said Jackie Schoeman, executive director of Cotlands, a South African childcare organisation.
“But that is not always possible because many communities are already saturated from the high number of orphans. Foreign adoptions are only considered if the only other option is to place a child in an institution. We don’t want to see children growing up in an institution and then at 18 having to go into society with no community network. They become vulnerable again.”
Cotlands has 70 children in residence and supports 2 000 children through community outreach programmes. “We screen families and support groups and monitor the child’s progress. We help families get access to government foster-care grants, which is a great help,” said Schoeman.
A few years ago, Cotlands’s two hospices cared for children who were dying of Aids. Now with the availability of antiretroviral drugs, infected children are getting well and thriving. “Our death rate has dropped from 51 in 2002 to five in 2006,” said Schoeman.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s Child Welfare Society handles adoptions. “We encourage the adoption of children who are HIV-positive,” said Pam Wilson, director of the society. “These children need love and care for however long they can be on this earth. People need to get beyond their fears and angst about children who are HIV-positive. There is a huge fear of bringing them into their homes.”
She said that with ARV drugs many HIV-positive children are now thriving, whereas just a few years ago they would have been sickly and eventually died. “We also see that many babies who are born HIV-positive are sero-converting to negative status. They become healthy and can be adopted,” said Wilson. The Child Welfare Society cares for and seeks adoptive homes for about 150 children who are either abandoned or given up by their mothers.
“This celebrity adoption is not new. Famous people have been adopting children from the Third World for years,” said Wilson, referring to Mia Farrow and others. “I don’t see it as a problem as long as they go through the same procedures and are not just being approved for adoption by virtue of their celebrity alone. It is not good to bypass the system and screening procedures.”