Warnings against animal tourism are frequently brought to our attention. Elephants in chains, big cats doped, and marine giants caged in hideously confined tanks are concerns which are generally well-publicised. The maltreatment of these animals is undeniably cruel and barbarous in many cases, yet a lesser-known cruel practice in the industry of tourism is the volunteering that takes place on the pretence of caring for children.
Orphanages are part of the growing volunteerism phenomena which guarantee a fulfilling experience for your gap year. Beneath the benevolent appearance of these institutions, however, lies the sinister truth that they function on the precedent of being a profitable organisation with little thought being driven into the children’s well-being. In fact, think of it exactly like a zoo: privileged westerners get the chance to pay a sum of money to play with and gaze at the have-nots of a third-world country; exactly as you would do in any of the animal parks across Africa and Asia. And, more often than not, like a zoo, when you leave at the end of the day, you are unaware of the damage you have contributed to in your complicity with these organisations.
The crucial thing to remember is that among the 8 million children across the world who are in orphanages, over 80% of them are not actually orphans. These children become the victims to their own situation, generally due to one of two things: poverty or disability. Parents are in an agonizing position, faced with someone telling them that their child would be fed if they give him or her up or that their child would get full medical care once handed over. And sadly, in the desperate belief that they are giving their child a better chance of survival, they will probably never see their child again. As you can imagine, this is especially prominent in cases of natural disaster where children are trafficked for businesses once money comes flooding in for aid (since 2010, there has been a 700% increase in Haitian children in institutions). And this isn’t merely incidental, as there are actually people who bear the name ‘child finders’ with the job to seek out desperate families whom they can persuade to give over their child under the veil of false promises.
The issue comes that once these children become institutionalised, it is not the case that they can be released once their parents have enough money to care for them. They are hidden as a commodity in these enterprises until adulthood, during which their chances of a normal life are minimal. Often, these children have lived in appalling conditions (an investigation in Ghana in 2009 found that only 8 out of 148 orphanages in the country were licensed). Without parental love or individual attention, their development has quite seriously been stifled, while a lacking education has resulted in opportunity being scarce. These problems amount to shocking figures whereby a child who has grown up in an orphanage is 10 times more likely to become involved in prostitution, 40 times more likely to commit crime, and 500 times more likely to commit suicide.
This is not an attack on the people with good intentions who have unknowingly tried to help by donating or visiting these institutions. In the UK, orphanages are a thing of the past and romanticised in films and literature. This has led to myths circulating around the idea of the system which need to be dispelled.
There are literally billions of pounds-worth of foreign aid donated every year to orphanages, with each child in an orphanage in Haiti attracting $6000. It is this money which enables children to be used as commodities. So by even donating to orphanages, you will be catering to those unscrupulous people who utilise children as a means of profit. Rather, the answer is to donate or become involved with the work of community service based initiatives, where you will be helping 10 times the number of children that you would be by donating to institutions. The most significant way that you can help a child in the developing world is if you are donating to a cause which will help a family stay together. This is cheaper than institutionalising a child as a study in South Africa found that residential care was up to six times more expensive than providing care for children in vulnerable families. And if those children really don’t have the option to be with their family, then donating to these initiatives will also go towards investing in services which will improve the best possible alternatives: foster care, adoption, and supported living in small family-style units. Otherwise, efforts and money used on your gap year will be exploited to prolong the use of this damaging system.
To find out more information and ways to help effectively, follow the links below: