THERE are 30 million orphans in India, which is a significant portion of the population of young people in the country. The hardship that an orphan faces is so much more than the absence of parents in their lives. Without guardians, an orphaned child has little to no access to basic rights such as education or healthcare. But more dangerous than that, unsupervised children are vulnerable to abuse, homelessness, child labor and trafficking, which places them in harmful conditions and even leads to death.
Of the millions of orphans in India, only 500,000 are in a children’s home. The remaining millions are left to fend for themselves or wait for years until they are adopted by a family, which in itself is a complicated and time-consuming process. But even during this process, there is a shortage of care homes to keep orphans safe. Officially, there are only around 7,000 registered child care institutions in the country for the millions of orphans who need shelter and specialized care. Furthermore, many of these institutions are underfunded and in need of equipment and resources.
Give’s Mission: No Child Orphaned works with partner NGOs across India to take in orphans and place them in a safe and sheltered environment where they are protected from the dangers that exist outside. In these safe environments, they are cared for with regular nutritious meals and medical care to make sure they are nurtured to good health. To help build their futures, the children also have the opportunity to go to school so they can develop their skills and improve their futures. To join our mission, you can donate here with a charitable donation of ₹1,000 a month to impact the life of an orphan.
What causes orphanhood?
There are anywhere between 30,000 to 30 million orphans in India, according to official and unofficial estimates. The high and increasing number of orphans in India, due to recent developments such as adult COVID deaths, can be attributed to several reasons.
It is estimated that 21.9% of India’s large population of 1.4 billion people lives below the poverty line, which is currently set at a per capita income of ₹816 (rural) or ₹1,000 (urban) per month according to the Tendulkar Committee 2011. A consequence of households living in extreme poverty is that families are unable to feed, educate, provide medical care or even supervise their children and this frequently leads to their abandonment. Children born with disabilities or diseases such as HIV require extra care and medical treatment, which poor families cannot afford. Orphans are therefore often abandoned in public places or at the doorsteps of NGOs, as is the case with many children cared for by Mission: No Child Orphaned.
Furthermore, when this level of extreme poverty is combined with social prejudices, such as discrimination against female children due to the practice of dowry and other customs, many girls are abandoned or even murdered as fetuses because families cannot afford to raise them to adulthood.
What impact does orphanhood have on a child?
Without caregivers, children have limited access to food or medical care. The resultant hunger and starvation causes malnutrition, stunted growth, lower life expectancy and even death. These children end up suffering from preventable diseases that greatly reduce their quality of life. Forced to live on the streets, children are also exposed to all the dangers that homelessness brings. This is alarming even for an adult but for an unguarded child, the situation is more dire. Criminals and traffickers regard these children as “easy prey” and either coerce or abduct them into a life of servitude where they are forced to work in restaurants, brick kilns, factories or even red light districts where they are sexually assaulted.
In addition to not having access to their basic needs, orphaned children also suffer in other, intangible ways. The absence of a parental figure means that a child is deprived of the chance to form an emotional bond with a trusted adult during those crucial formative years. These children, therefore, do not receive the guidance and affection they need and this goes on to shape their personalities and futures. For survival, orphans are usually forced to “raise themselves” and are deprived of a happy childhood, which each child deserves.
The legal rights of orphans
In India, orphans fall under the category of Children in Need of Care and Protection within the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015. Under the law in India, a child who has lost his or her parents is to be provided with shelter, food and safety in an institutionalized care home. These can be government-run institutions or the many NGOs across the country that provide the care that orphans need and deserve. While this does provide orphans with protections to a certain extent, their specific needs remain unaddressed without a separate law.
Why are adoptions so low?
With so many orphans in the country, adoption seems like the best solution, but the adoption rate in India remains low. In the past 10 years, only around 46,400 children were adopted, according to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). In India, there are multiple hurdles that people have to cross in their effort to legally adopt a child, which can take up to several years. There are also other reasons for the low number of adoptions including deeply held prejudices such as the sex of the baby and his or her community, background, skin color and other factors that prevent many children from getting the care they deserve in a safe and loving home.
What is Mission: No Child Orphaned?
Mission: No Child Orphaned cares for orphans who are caught in the middle of a system that does not yet adequately provide for the needs of millions of children. When you donate ₹1,000 per month to Give’s Mission: No Child Orphaned, you give an orphan a safe home to live in, specialized caregivers to nurture them, nutritious meals and education to prepare them for a future of promise. When you donate here to Mission: No Child Orphaned, you give these children the care and attention they need and tell them that they matter.
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Shirley has been in the development sector for over 10 years and is passionate about making a change in the world around her, including adopting dogs and writing to make a difference.
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