Mon, 25 Sep 2017 13:04:44 +0000
By Linda Soko Tembo
OVER 68 percent of the 6,413 children living in childcare facilities across Zambia have been abandoned by their biological parents, The Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare (MCDSS) has disclosed.
Minister of Community Development and Social Welfare Emerine Kabanshi expressed disappointment with parents’ decisions to send their biological children for special care.
Ms. Kabanshi wondered why parents would abandon their own children at an institution when the government had programmes to help support their livelihood.
She was speaking during the launch of the “Alternative Care and Reintegration Guidelines and the Report on the Nationwide Assessment of Child Care Facilities” in Lusaka at the weekend.
Ms. Kabanshi said that there was need to highlight the important roles that a family played with regard to the upbringing of children and eventually to national development.
“The family is the first and most important social institution where shelter and security is provided should be encouraged and strengthened to continue playing this role,” she said.
Ms. Kabanshi explained that a family was a critical and delicate social institution noting that a stable family led to sustainable social, economic and political development.
She explained that the purpose of launching Alternative Care and Reintegration Guidelines and the Report on the Nationwide Assessment of Child Care Facilities was aimed at guiding everyone through the processes such as adoption and care that had been misunderstood by people for a very longtime.
The minister said that with the new documents in place, the procedure would be easy to follow as guidelines had been developed for everyone who had an interest to know what the laid down procedure was.
Meanwhile Deputy Representative for UNICEF Zambia Shadrack Omol commended the ministry for the finalisation of the Nationwide Assessment Report on Child Care Facilities that had provided insights on the welfare of 6,413 children who were living in these facilities.
Mr. Omol said that the nationwide assessment found that most children placed in child care facilities had families and that most of those children tend to over-stay with very little or no contact with their birth or extended families.
