Turning the Tide: An Ethnographic Study of Children’s Experiences Following the Death of Their Father in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)

Response Section

• Marcellin Danhoundo, MA

• Regional Program Manager (West Africa)

• World Vision Canada (Mississauga Office)

Support for orphaned children and particularly orphaned girls in Sub-Saharan Africa remains a major challenge for governments and child-focused international organizations. As shown in this chapter, a multitude of complex factors make the issue so complicated to be addressed. My experiences and observations as a practitioner who facilitated the design and implementation of programs aimed at providing support for orphans in Africa particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe allow me to confirm that the approach adopted by some NGOs which consists in placing orphaned children and mostly girls in households within their paternal family has not always yielded consistent results. At the same time, the systematic promotion of placing orphaned girls in specialized institutions as a solution to the problem does not appear to be realistic, or effective. In the current African contexts, many cultural and religious beliefs as well as institutional and political barriers are likely going to impede its implementation.

The Limits of NGOs’ Approach

The approach of placing orphaned girls in their deceased father’s family adopted by most NGOs providing support to orphans is consistent with the desire to preserve family cohesion and to keep children in a family environment which they are already accustomed to. This approach also aligns with the desire to strengthening the family and social cohesion and cultural norms and practices. Indeed, one of the guiding principles for designing and implementing community development programs and projects by NGOs is to avoid disturbing or violating cultural norms and practices, unless such norms and practices are to hamper human and child rights and hinder the effectiveness of the planned actions. Interestingly, two types of problems have proved to affect the effectiveness of the approach. In the majority of cases, the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of orphaned girls placed in their paternal or maternal family is negatively impacted. For example, as a representative of Mennonite Central Committee in Zimbabwe, I got reports on physical and sexual abuse of girls by their own family members. Cases of sexual abuse on girls are so common in some countries at the point that individuals or religious institutions have set up organizations exclusively devoted to providing a variety of supports to those sexually abused girls by members of their own families. That is the case of Sandra Jones Centre in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In addition to these abuses, those girls are excessively subject to household strains. Consequently, in the case they have the chance to be enrolled in school, their academic performance is affected as they have no time for their school homework.

The second problem we always face is related to the jealousy aroused by the supports the orphans receive from NGOs. Some NGOs do not pay only school fees for orphans, but also provide them with school supplies including school uniforms and shoes. In host families with limited resources where parents cannot afford to do so for their own children, that creates the feeling that the orphans are more privileged, and it can be turned into open or veiled persecution or mistreatments toward them. This was noticed as one of the challenges faced by NGOs while implementing various programs designed to support orphaned children whose number has increased significantly following the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa region. In Zimbabwe, for example, many orphans courageously reported to the community-based organizations we partner with on verbal abuse they suffered as a result of the jealousy of their host family members because of the support they were getting from NGOs. In most cases, the NGOs in consultation with members of the extended family replace the children in other households within the family.

Cultural and Religious Barriers to Placing Orphans in Formal Institutions in Africa

Traditionally, in many sub-Saharan African countries , the care for orphans by the relatives of the deceased is perceived as a sacred duty. The brothers and sisters of the deceased would feel obliged to comply with this tradition because of cultural and religious beliefs. Indeed, in some communities, a deceased person is believed to have power to harm people. From another perspective, taking care of an orphan left by a deceased relative is believed to be a way of fulfilling the role of the family as a safety net. For that reason, placing an orphan in a formal institution is perceived as the denial of social norms and traditions and may be viewed as the inability of the family members to care for the orphan, which is disgraceful. This helps understand why people would prefer keeping orphans with close family members even if they cannot meet their basic needs. Few years ago, I witnessed in the Republic of Benin the refusal to place an orphaned child in a formal institution (SOS Village) by family members; for the resisting family, the other community members could view that as an inability to care for this orphan.

Institutional and Political Barriers to Placing Orphaned Girls in Formal Institutions

The promotion of placing systematically orphaned children in specialized institutions requires prerequisites that are hardly achievable in the current social and political contexts of African countries. The majority of the specialized institutions caring for orphans in Africa are owned by religious institutions or other charitable organizations with very limited accommodation capacity. Governments or other public entities need to invest in building specialized centers and provide continuously sufficient resources for them to keep running to allow the majority of orphans to be placed in formal institutions. In other words, there is a need for a strong political commitment that must result in designing informed and evidence-based policies that prioritize the well-being of orphans. Interestingly, orphans do not seem to be part of African countries’ priorities. There is no doubt that African countries, except very few like Botswana, are unable to adequately meet the education needs of children in terms of adequate school infrastructure and qualified teaching staff. It goes without saying that placing systematically orphans in specialized institutions is far from becoming a reality in Africa in the near future.

Providing support to orphaned children in Sub-Saharan Africa remains a crucial problem whose solution calls for profound cultural, social, political, and institutional changes. It requires a combination of efforts and a synergy of actions including research institutions, international NGOs, civil society organizations, and state actors aimed at correcting flaws in current practices and at the same time removing the barriers that hamper the promotion of specialized institutions.