EveryChild
4 Bath Place
Rivington Street
London
EC2A 3DR
T +44 (0)20 7749 2468
F +44 (0)20 7729 8339
Why are children separated from their families?
Although poverty is the significant underlying factor, there are a number of complex reasons which trigger child separation.
Family disintegration
Family disintegration (because of violence, abuse or exploitation in the home, divorce, separation, remarriage or relationship difficulties) can lead to a child becoming separated from the family.
Negative cultural and social attitudes can force single parents or parents with disabled children to abandon their child, hide them away or place them in residential care at an early age.
HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is another precipitating factor which can lead to family breakdown. In the coming years, HIV/AIDS will have a huge impact on the numbers of children separated from their parents, and not just in terms of orphans.
Discrimination, high medical costs, death of breadwinners and heads of household will place enormous pressure on already vulnerable children and contribute to higher numbers of children living and working without parental care.
Child labour and trafficking
Families face enormous financial pressure and many struggle to meet their most basic needs. In recent years, globalisation and rapid urbanisation has led to the breakdown of traditional structures.
Families and children sometimes have little option but to try and earn money outside traditional sources. Whereas they may have worked in the fields or at home, parents may instead seek better economic opportunities by moving to cities, children may be sent away to work in order to support their families or they may choose to leave themselves in search of a better life. A more extreme and sadly growing phenomenon is children who are trafficked from rural areas to larger towns, for the purposes of commercial sex work or labour exploitation.