Explaining the Continued Presence of Orphanages in Battambang Province, Cambodia

According to a 2009 UNICEF statistic, there are an estimated 630,000 orphans in Cambodia. 12,000 children currently reside in orphanages.   Although some institutions provide services specific to the needs of certain populations of vulnerable children (victims of sexual trafficking, HIV, street children, and children with disabilities), a 2011 UNICEF report revealed that most of the 12,000 children in Cambodia’s orphanages are not double orphans.  According to UNICEF, almost three quarters of them have one living parent (only 28% of children in orphanages have lost both parents).  The number of children in care has more than doubled in five years.  According to UNICEF, the number of orphanage centers has nearly doubled to 269 facilities in the same period (just 21 of those are run by the government; the rest are funded and run by foreign donors and faith-based organizations).  UNICEF’s chief of communications, Marc Vergara has indicated that “a lot of this increase is due to funding from overseas, and we find that with the best intentions people who try to help orphanages in Cambodia through funding are actually contributing to separating children from their families.” In 2006, the Kingdom of Cambodia adopted the Policy on Alternative Care for Children, which “aims to ensure that children grow up in a family and in a community environment that promotes the principle that institutional care should be a last resort and a temporary solution for children.” In light of the 2011 UNICEF report that demonstrated the failure of this principle to stem the increasing trend of opening and placing children in institutional care facilities, the Cambodian government has begun an investigation of the country’s orphanages.

In Cambodia’s northwest province of Battambang, the number of orphanages registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) has more than tripled from 11 to 42 since 2000.  There are 23 institutions registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs.  Of 23 institutions, two have opened up multiple branches within the past 5 years—18 branches in total between the two—to bring the total number of officially registered orphanages in Battambang Province to 42.  In response to this apparent discrepancy between national policy and the increase in numbers of institutions since 2006, a need has grown to better understand from the communities’ perspective the reasons for such institutional expansion in Battambang Province.  This qualitative study seeks to better understand some of the reasons for residential care expansion in the province: Has the increase in institutions over the past decade been demand-driven?  Are poor rural families opting to send their children to institutions because they can’t care for these children or because, even though the care that the family was able to provide was adequate, the family envisions a better life for the child in an institution?  To what extent are family and community-based options available and explored before institutionalization of orphans and vulnerable children?  Through interviews conducted with the directors of a random sample of long-term and newly established institutions in Battambang Province, this qualitative study seeks to identify some of the reasons why children are sent to orphanages to live as well as to understand the attitudes of those stakeholders who are influencing the rise in institutions in the province.  The results of this study could prove useful to MoSVY, local authorities, UNICEF, and other government organizations and foreign NGOs who work to promote the welfare of orphans and vulnerable children as well as poverty stricken families.