Impact of UN policy on young children in institutional care

Introduction; In October 2009, the UN General Assembly produced ‘Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children’ for 193 Member States.to adopt a “deinstitutionalization objective and strategy” policy, particularly... [ view full abstract ]

Introduction; In October 2009, the UN General Assembly produced ‘Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children’ for 193 Member States.to adopt a “deinstitutionalization objective and strategy” policy, particularly for children under the age of three years who were at risk of harm. The Guidelines state that alternative care for young children should be only provided in family settings. It is questionable whether this has produced any measurable changes in the number of young children living in in residential care institutions (RCIs) of 11 or more children without a parent for more than 3 months.
Methods: To establish the number and characteristics of children in RCIs, less than 3 years, a Survey of Government Official Statistics was carried for 54 Countries across Europe and Central Asia. Data from 2013 were compared to findings related to young children in RCIs from a previous survey in 2003 of the same countries.
Results: Data from 51 countries showed there were 32,627,008 children less than 3 years with 31,520 of these children living in RCIs without a parent. The number had decreased by 28% for the region in the past ten years. However, when the decrease in live births is taken into account, the figures are less impressive. The proportion of young children in institutions for 2013/14 was 9.7 per 10,000 and for 2002/03 it was 14.4 per 10,000. Thus, the decrease of 4.7 per 10,000 shows there has been a slow decline over the past ten years of approximately 0.5/10,000 per year.
Discussion: A third of countries in the region have more than 1 per 1000 young children less than 3 years living in RCIs. Discrimination against single mothers, ethnic background and child disabilities, together with poor education and family planning, unwanted pregnancies, poverty and economic migration were all cited as causal risk factors.