The Making of “Orphans”

In Uganda, there has been a proliferation of foreign-supported orphanages encouraging poor parents to place their children in care and relinquish them for adoption to meet the demands of a very profitable “orphan rescue” movement. Instead of reuniting children with family, these institutions actively discourage contact to keep children in the orphanage or make them available for international adoption. Ugandan parents tend to think of these new practices as a global expansion of local informal fostering practices, but rarely do they have a clear understanding of the detrimental effects of institutionalization on children, nor the permanency of adoption—a fact some unscrupulous intermediaries prey upon for profit. This chapter sheds light on “orphan rescue” interventions and argues that such efforts have effected a worrying shift in local parenting norms, responsibilities, and practices around schooling and childcare—seriously jeopardizing family preservation, child protection, and child well-being.