Beware of calls to ‘rescue’ India’s ‘Covid orphans’

Blog post by Dr Kristen Cheney
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Children walking in street in India - BlISS
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Dr Kristen Cheney discusses how building orphanages and seeking adoption for children orphaned by COVID-19 deaths may not be the best way to help them.

News reports of children being orphaned by Covid-19 deaths in India raise the spectre of a generation of children without adequate parental care.

But international responses that favour solutions like building orphanages and seeking adoption for these children are misguided and can lead to child exploitation. In this post, Kristen Cheney explains why and how you can better support children orphaned during the pandemic.

She argues that support care reforms that keep children in families or family-based care whenever possible offer better long-term solutions.

Read the full post - Beware of calls to ‘rescue’ India’s ‘Covid orphans’

Associate professor
Dr Kristen Cheney
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