The number of Ebola orphans in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone is growing. A UNICEF statement released late last month reported that at least 3700 children have lost one or both parents to Ebola.[1] Since then, officially reported Ebola cases have grown by over 2000 and it is believed that many more cases have gone unreported.[2] 2000 orphans are reported in Liberia alone.[3] The number of orphans is expected to rise sharply, according to Nigel Spence, CEO of children’s charity ChildFund Australia.[4] Indeed, a more recent statement by Billy Abimbilla, the director of Liberia ChildFund, puts the number of orphans upwards of 7000.[5]
UNICEF is training 400 mental health and social workers in Liberia, 2500 Ebola survivors in the care and support of quarantined children in Sierra Leone, and planning to provide for 60,000 vulnerable children and families in Guinea.[6] ChildFund has collaborated with Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to open an Interim Care Center for affected children.[7] The center can only care for 20 children at a time as they go through their 21-day quarantine period.[8]
Food production is a problem throughout the affected regions as MSF reported in mid-August that “[I]n some villages there is hardly anybody left to cultivate the fields or provide for families.”[9] In some areas in Sierra Leone’s Kailahun district, by mid-August most of the working-age adults were dead, and there were many orphaned children and elderly people.[10] UNICEF and MSF report that the majority of deaths have been in those aged 25-45 years.[11]
In Liberia about half of mothers were raising their children alone, in large part because of the deaths of thousands of men in the 1989-2003 civil war.[12] When these mothers die, there is no one left to take care of their children. One such child, Frank, traveled to Monrovia seeking the assistance of relatives, but after that was denied has been forced to scavenge for food on the streets.[13]
The stigma surrounding Ebola survivors[14] can make care for these vulnerable children an even greater challenge. Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West & Central Africa, said “[o]rphans are usually taken in by a member of the extended family, but in some communities, the fear surrounding Ebola is becoming stronger than family ties.”[15]
During the HIV epidemic extended family and friends often took in orphans, providing a safety net that is no longer there in the face of Ebola stigma.[16] Six children left to their own devices in Paynesville, Liberia were prevented by their community from getting fire or water.[17] Children’s charity Street Child provided for them, even hiring a person in their community to give them water.[18] They were eventually brought to a child refuge in Monrovia run by Ebola survivors.[19] While those exposed to Ebola are supposed to undergo a 21-day quarantine there is often no space even for adults exposed, and exposed children are viewed as a risk.
A glimpse of the possible future for Ebola orphans exists in the treatment of war orphans. Sierra Leone and Liberia already have experience in caring for the orphans produced by their civil wars to terrible results. The backdrop for the treatment of war orphans was social and governmental collapse and a long road to rebuilding, similar to what is predicted for the Ebola crisis. A 2007 UNMIL study of war orphans in over 100 Liberian orphanages revealed many orphans’ lack of access to adequate food, shelter, and medicine.[20]
In most of the orphanages surveyed in the UNMIL study, there were not enough beds and children shared mattresses with other children or slept on the floor on blankets.[21] More than half also rely on international humanitarian organizations or overseas private donors for the children’s food.[22] Food was often misappropriated or eaten by staff, some of them supporting themselves with the food as they did not receive cash for operating the orphanages.[23] All orphanage schools lacked the basic supplies.[24] Additionally, there was no way for children to report abuse and a lack of adherence to a regulatory structure that would help prevent exploitation and abuse.[25]
Most children in the orphanages had at least one parent alive, but were in the orphanages because the parents couldn’t – or wouldn’t – take care of them.[26] The orphanages were viewed as ways to endure that children had access to food and education by many parents; they were not abandoned but they also were not in a family environment. Adults had no ready alternative to childcare while working, and in some instances the terrible conditions in the orphanages were better than those in the home of the parent.[27] With Ebola taking the lives of so many adults and the work that will be needed to rebuild in the affected nations, it is foreseeable that Ebola “orphans” will end up in the same situation in which the war orphans found themselves, even if a parent survives.
With little oversight, there were allegations of child exploitation in international adoptions, leading to a Liberian ban on new adoptions.[28] Looking for the high fees international adoptions could give them, child sellers also went into poor areas, convincing parents to give up their child with promises of providing food, shelter, and education; parents were not told that they would never see their children again.[29] The adoption ban didn’t stop the child sellers, but it did prevent legitimate adoptions of orphaned children, keeping them in the orphanages while they could have been provided for in other countries.[30] The same conditions that resulted in child abandonment and trickery are likely going to be present when the outbreak stops. International attention will need to be paid to prevent the exploitation and sale of children in the coming years.
Sierra Leone had a similar civil war from 1991-2002. In a 2008 UNICEF study on out-of-school children there, the death of one or both parent(s) was found to be the number one reason children stopped attending or never attended school.[31] A UNICEF analysis of Freetown and Bo, Sierra Leone’s who largest cities, found that over half of the children living on the street survived through prostitution.[32] 54% of out-of-school children were found to live with extended family,[33] a recourse that the Ebola stigma is denying many Ebola orphans today and that leaves more children on the street.
During the civil war, help for the orphans was long in coming due to the difficulties of access to certain areas and violence.[34] In the current situation, however, charities are starting to move now to support the orphans. While the difficulty is still great – and expected to increase as the outbreak intensifies – quick action will hopefully prevent the maltreatment and exploitation the war orphans suffered.
Sources below the cut.
[1] UNICEF, Thousands of children orphaned by Ebola, September 30, 2014; http://www.unicef.org/media/media_76085.html
[2] WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report; October 1 & October 15; http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/135600/1/roadmapsitrep_1Oct2014_eng.pdf & http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/136508/1/roadmapsitrep15Oct2014.pdf
[3] ChildFund, Children at Risk: Help Fight Ebola; https://www.childfund.org/ebola_emergency/
[4] Kristin Shorten, news.com.au, Ebola orphans shunned in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone; http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/ebola-orphans-shunned-in-liberia-guinea-and-sierra-leone/story-fneuz9ev-1227086242451
[5] Kelly Avenillo, NBC 12, Henrico-based charity aiding Ebola efforts in Liberia; http://www.nbc12.com/story/26767520/henrico-based-charity-aiding-ebola-efforts-in-liberia
[6] ChildFund, supra note 3.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] MSF, International Response to West Africa Ebola Epidemic Dangerously Inadequate; http://www.msf.org/article/international-response-west-africa-ebola-epidemic-dangerously-inadequate
[10] Id.
[11] Id. and Ebola orphans shunned, supra note 4.
[12] Sheilia Passewe, USA Today, Orphans abandoned, shunned in Africa’s Ebola crisis; http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/16/ebola-liberia-orphans-abandoned/17197573/
[13] Id.
[14] Mirran Gidda, BBC News Africa, Ebola outbreak: Liberian survivors struggle for acceptance; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29628054
[15] Thousands of children orphaned by Ebola, supra note 1.
[16] Marc Bastian, Yahoo! News, Ebola orphans facing grim fight for survival; https://news.yahoo.com/ebola-orphans-facing-grim-fight-survival-142922726.html
[17] Channel 4 News, ‘God, why take my father and mother?’ – Ebola orphans; http://www.channel4.com/news/ebola-orphan-parents-dead-children-shunned-video-photo-story
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] UNMIL, Human Rights in Liberia’s Orphanages, March 2007, p. 14; http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/473daddb0.pdf
[21] Id. p. 23.
[22] Id. p. 25.
[23] Id.
[24] Id. p. 26.
[25] Id. p. 36.
[26] Id. p. 17.
[27] Id. p. 7.
[28] Nadene Ghouri, BBC News, Liberia’s ‘orphan’ trade; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7726687.stm
[29] Id.
[30] Ann M. Simmons, The Seattle Times, Civil war leaves Liberian orphans in limbo; http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030809&slug=orphans09
[31] UNICEF, The Out-of-school Children of Sierra Leone, August 2008, p. 3; http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/wcaro_SL_Out_of_school_aug_09.pdf
[32] U.S. State Department, 2010 Human Rights Report: Sierra Leone, April 2011; http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/af/154368.htm
[33] The Out-of-school Children of Sierra Leone, p. 27, supra note 31.
[34] Human Rights in Liberia’s Orphanages, p.6, supra note 20.
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